“Nevertheless, sir,” said James, “I understand that the learned antiquary John Selden, before he was elected to this Parliament, was so long a guest at Great Tew that almost it became his domicile.”
“Ay, true,” Mr. Milton answered. “Mr. Selden is a most indefatigable plodder and searcher of obscure records, from whose discourse I have profited; but I argue from the strange company which he customarily keeps, dwelling so much in the imagined society of outlandish and long-deceased barbarians, that he has grown callous and indurated to the faults of living men. Or it may be that, being born in a nasty hovel, of mean parents, he was never choice in company from childhood forward.”
My brother James continued: “And what of Mr. George Sandys, who has translated a work of Grotius—”
“For Grotius I confess a profound reverence,” interrupted Mr. Milton. “I had the honour of his acquaintance when I went travelling abroad three years ago, and deplore that any work of his pen should be barbarously Englished by Georgie Sandys! Have you perhaps read his inept translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid? Ovid, though a paltry, whining wretch, was tunable at least; and Sandys unkindly denies him even his tunableness and leaves plain beastly what was beastliness disguised. And his versifying of the Scripture—it is indeed nothing decent! I believe that your Lord Falkland has complimented him in verse upon his rendering of the Psalms, writing that ‘he shakes the dust from David’s solemn lyre.’ ‘Shakes the dust’ quotha! The dust on David’s lyre lies golden like the pollen in the lily; but Sandys, with no more knowledge of Hebrew than an ass has of brewing beer, and not the least awe or respect for David’s immortal verse, puffs off this golden dust with his insensate bellows, and shakes on, instead, the dust of coal and fallen soot from a smooty hearth-basket.”
Since he found that he could make no headway in this conversation, my brother James excused himself and asked leave to gallop across a wide, rough field on our right hand; to weary his horse, he said, which dragged at the bridle too freshly.
Thus Mr. Milton was left alone with me, for the first time in our acquaintance; but said nothing for a long while, and neither did I. I had decided to reserve my thoughts and opinions from him, so far as that were possible, until he chose to enquire for them. At last he said: “Your hair delights my eye, pretty Child. Without doubt, Eve had tresses like yours.”
I answered ingenuously: “Indeed, sir, your delight contents me. Every morning I quicken my hair with my brush.”
Then he said: “After I had seen you for the first time, your hair became an obsession of my mind: for it wreathed itself between my eye and what book soever I studied, though it might be the Holy Bible itself, coming with a gadding or serpentine motion until it choked the sense of my reading.”
“I am sure that I am heartily sorry if I inconvenienced you,” said I, playing the simpleton.
“Yours was neither the first nor the only hair that ensnared my eye,” he said, “but certainly, it drew its snare the tightest; however, when I found experimentally that by no act of ratiocination, nor any ascetic exercise, could I circumvent or remove this strange affection of the eye, and also that only the hair of virgins had the same grand compulsion for me, I was no longer dismayed. I concluded it to be God’s will that I should render humble submission to Him, and so enter into wedlock, wherefrom for certain choice reasons I had conscientially refrained: for thus I should be able to gloat upon your hair legitimately, and soon (because of its daily and nightly familiarity) I would be no more plagued with it, in my visionary sense, than I am now by my own ears.”
“I am but ill instructed in the ways of the world,” said I, “but confess that this sounds as a queer reason for a man to come courting. Now perhaps you will answer me fairly: what were your consciential reasons for avoiding marriage?”
Then speaking to me in simple language, without his customary convolutions of oratory, he answered: “Since you are to be the wife of my bosom, I will now disclose to you what I have never broken to any other person living. I made a private vow of chastity when I became a poet, as other men have made this vow upon their entry into a monastic order. To be a complete poet, a man needs a pleasant and secure life, without the cares attendant on commerce or the Law of husbandry—and in such a life my wise and generous father has ever indulged me. Also he must seek out and gather up for his use a huge store of various learnings, with all the arts and sciences linked together philosophically in a commodious and comprehensive system; and music he must have in sufficiency; and foreign travel. Yet all this, I said, is nothing without perfect chastity, for in chastity resides a magical power of compelling words to subservience; without which no poet may hope for immortal fame, lively to flit from mouth to mouth of men,’ as Lucretius wrote.
“Now, as you may know, there are two main branches of the Tree of Poesy, namely the lyric and the epic (but with the lyric goes the pastoral poem, the ode and the hymn; and with the epic goes the grand dramatic poem); and a complete poet, as Homer, Virgil and Dante, is found excellent in both branches. Lately, when I considered that I had attained to a certain perfection in the lyrical art, I resolved (though tempted to write a few odes and hymns before passing on) at last to undertake the epical. However, I bethought me that as there are two kinds of poetry, so also there are two kinds of chastity, namely the chastity of the unmarried, which is perfect abstinence; and the chastity of the married, which is neither to commit adultery, nor to be greedy of the sensual pleasures by Nature permitted to a married man. I concluded that as lyrical perfection is conformable with the chastity of the unmarried, so is epical perfection with that of the married; and that, before he may write a noble and immortal epic, or grand dramatic poem, a man must first achieve the satisfaction of his natural flesh. That I have never known a woman carnally is, I believe, the cause why I am now so greatly delayed in the task which I have set myself—for no sooner did I set my lips to those new pipes, than they burst their bands and flew in sunder. My conscience tells me: ‘Marry.’ And in that opinion I was confirmed when, having offered up a prayer to God, I opened the Bible at a venture and looked, and read the text where my eye rested, which was this, from the one-and-twentieth chapter of Leviticus:
“‘And he shall take a wife in her virginity.’
“‘A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot, these shall he not take; but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.’
“My own people, as you know, Mistress, have resided upon this same ridge of hill that we now ride upon, for generations out of mind.”
“You have answered my question so freely,” said I, “that I am emboldened to ask you yet another. Why was it that, when I first saw you, at Woodstock Town End, you gave your alias as ‘Tiresias’?”
“This question too,” said he, “is pertinent to my discourse, and I will answer it. As a child, I was at first bold and vigorous, but one day, when I was about eight years old, a playfellow of mine died very suddenly as we tumbled together in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He was suspected to be dead of the plague and when I came home they stripped all my apparel off me and burned it in the bakehouse oven, and shaved off my hair close to the poll, and enclosed me in a room where sulphur burned like Fogo so that I was nearly choked. I did not take the plague, and I believe now that my playfellow died from some other cause; yet from that time forward for many years, until my hair had grown again to its full natural length, I was feeble and womanish, with headaches, megrims, and ill vapours ascending from the stomach to the brain, and also I conceived strange amatory fancies for persons of my own sex. Indeed to one friend, who was of Italian blood and died not long ago, I was in my affections more like a solicitous wife than a trusty comrade. I can yet remember how a woman’s heart longs for a man, but because of a sense of decency, common to us both, I was never catamite to this friend, and therefore my remembrance is void of shame.
“Doubtless, the poet Tiresias who, as the Greeks allege, killed a sacred serpent, and so became for a while a woman in body
was, when at last he was restored to masculinity, the better poet for his long unmanning; for the power to put apt speeches in the mouths of women is necessary for the complete poet. I am assured that the Greeks in this legend made reference not to serpents slain, but to serpentine locks unluckily shorn off. For in the man’s hair resides the holy masculine virtue of man: as the Lord said unto Moses, speaking of the priestly sons of Aaron: ‘They shall not make baldness upon their heads.’ This same mystery was understood of Samson and the Hebrew Nazarites; and may also be apprehended from the history of the Romans, who (by a foolish glabrification of their heads) sheared away the original Republican virtue which was their glory and became, first effeminate factionists, then slavish worshippers of an Emperor, and at last a prey to the lusty, long-haired barbarian. Remark, also, the effect of the priestly and monastic tonsure upon wisdom and learning: how the glorious locks of ancient Greece are cropped and depilated, and true religion debauched! Moreover, as we read in ancient histories, the powerful bards of our own island would not suffer their locks to be shorn, and thereby kept their prophetic power unimpaired.”
Mr. Milton paused, in the expectation that I would say something. I said, to soothe him (for he had told his tale in a very passionate and pathetic manner), that this single clipping of his young hair had perhaps served to make it shoot the stronger; as had happened with Samson’s love-locks while he was in the prison-house at Gaza.
My observation evidently pleased him. He told me that whenever he was busy with a poem he, like a Nazarite, or like Tiresias and Homer, drank nothing but pure spring water the while. Then boldly he asked me, did I not consider that he had a fine head of hair?
I replied merely: “Yes, sir. I have no fault to find with it.” Whereat he appeared more than a little dashed in his pride, yet said nothing. I could not lie: for Mun’s hair was the longer, the silkier, the more thick-set, the more curling, the nobler beyond comparison. However, I covered what was in my mind, by saying: “I have been accorded so much undeserved praise on account of my own hair, and so little on account of the rest of my person and whatever deserts I may have, that I cannot readily admire fine hair in another.”
He replied: “Yet you must learn to admire mine, for I am to be your husband. Now to tell you another thing. Between women and men almost all things go by contraries; and when a woman cuts off all her hair, which is her crowning glory, she becomes unwomanly, a lusty, swearing virago of a muscular strength equal to a man’s, and falls into unnatural inclinations. Therefore since a man requires docility and humility of heart in his wife, I have in my prudence marked you down as mine, being assured that your copious hair bespeaks perfect femininity.”
“I trust you are right, sir,” said I, giving him a grave look. “For though I may be simple and unlearned, yet I hope you will not find me saucy.”
James had been coursing a hare, which he lost when his hound started another; and presently giving up the chase for weariness he rejoined our company. He persuaded Mr. Milton to speak about the poems which he was writing or had in mind; who spoke so largely and eloquently that the discourse took us to Wheatley (where he viewed the estate very attentively) and halfway back again. He told us of his grand and solemn drama, divided into five Acts, to be titled Adam Unparadised.
“Before the First Act,” said he, “Moses prologizes, recounting how he assumed his true body after his disappearance from common sight upon Mount Pisgah—how this body corrupts not, because of certain pure winds, dew and clouds that preserve it, since it was once made wholesome by his being with God upon the Mount. Then, because it is not convenient to present a naked man (much less a naked woman) upon a public stage, he acquaints the audience that Adam and his newly created wife, Eve, are with him upon the stage, yet cannot be seen, because they are yet in their state of innocence, and no gross eyes may look upon them.”
“That is a very sly and circumspect avoidance of a difficulty,” said James. “Pray tell me, sir, how does the First Act go?”
“Why in the First Act,” he answered, “the Archangel Gabriel appears and gives some account of Paradise, and explains that since this Earth was created he is as frequent here as in Heaven. A chorus of Angels inquires why he is so often seen, and he replies that since Lucifer rebelled he must keep his watch upon this excellent new creature Man, lest Lucifer seduce him. Then enter Justice, Mercy, Wisdom (resplendent figures) and debate what will become of Man if he fall. The Chorus then sing a tremendous Hymn of Creation with strophe and antistrophe; but of this Act as yet only scattered lines have been communicated to me and none at all of the Second. However, I know that in the Second Act Lucifer appears, after his overthrow by the Archangel Michael, and bemoans himself and seeks revenge on man; when the Chorus, who prepare resistance at his first approach, inform him that since a woman has been found to keep man from loneliness, and a beautiful one, Lucifer can hope for no success. Yet this he denies and tells them that his task is now, contrary to their opinion, made easier. Then, after discourse of enmity on either side, he departs and the Chorus sing another great hymn of the battle and victory in Heaven against Lucifer and his accomplices.”
“Have you written anything of the Third Act?” asked James.
He answered: “I have indeed, and though this is not above five-and-twenty lines it would be ungrateful in me to God to pretend that it is not sublime work. First Lucifer appears and insults. Then Adam and Eve, having by this time been seduced by the Serpent, appear confusedly, dressed in garments of leaves. Conscience, in a shape, follows after Adam and accuses him, and Justice cites Man to appear for God’s examination; in the meantime the Chorus entertains the stage and is informed by some Angel of the manner of his Fall.”
I asked: “Does not Conscience also follow after Eve? Is she not also cited to appear?”
Mr. Milton did not answer me, but raised his voice a little as if in warning against needless interruption, as he proceeded: “This Act closes, as I said, with the Angel’s account of Adam’s fall. The Fourth Act, which is not yet ripened and come to any degree of digestion, will show Adam and Eve again, who accuse one another; but especially Adam casts the blame upon his wife, is stubborn in his offence. Then Justice appears again, reasons with him, convinces him, and the Chorus admonishes Adam, offering Lucifer’s impenitence as an ill example. In the Fifth and last Act comes an Angel with a sword to banish the guilty pair from Paradise; but, before, presents Adam with a masque of all the evils of this life and world, which he horrifically names (as he also named the brute creation) with the new names of Labour, Grief, Hatred, Envy, War, Famine, Pestilence, Sickness, Fear—as being shapes not before known. He is humbled, relents, despairs. At last appears Mercy, comforts him, promises the Messiah, then calls in Faith, Hope and Charity, who instruct him. He repents, glorifies God, submits to his penalty. The Chorus briefly concludes.”
“Pray tell me more of our mother Eve,” said I. “Was she indeed untroubled by Conscience, and thereafter unrepentant, as seems from this account?”
“The title of my drama,” said Mr. Milton sternly, “is not The Famous History of Adam and Eve, as you would make it, but Adam Unparadised. Adam, being of the perfecter sex, is the protagonist, and Eve is but the incidental instrument, or accessory, of his crime against God. She suffers with him, since she originally was his rib taken from him while he slept; and being his wife she is, on this account also, one flesh with him; she has not dividual standing before God, but is included in her husband’s penalty, and not more particularly itemized in the indictment than those other guilty ribs which were still joined to his breastbone. Nay, indeed, it was Adam’s foolishness, when he pleaded that Eve sinned and not he, which exasperated God. He was as a froward child who cries when he has broken a cup or platter: ‘It was not I who broke it, Mammy, it was my hand!’”
“Does this mean,” I asked, “that a woman can do no wrong, except as her husband does wrong too?”
“That is an ill-considered question,” he answered. “A woman’
s whole duty and knowledge should be attentive obedience to her husband, and this, if he does not enforce, so much the worse for both of them. Certain is it that a woman cannot be any better conditioned, as to her soul, than the man with whom she is united in flesh—if he sink to hell, necessarily he will drag her with him—whereas a man who is bound to an evil woman may yet save his soul by separating himself from her, in like manner as the Scripture requires him to pluck out an eye that offends him, or hew off an offensive hand.”
“That is a hard conclusion,” I said, “and a rough warning to fathers to marry their daughters to men of good principle.”
To give the conversation a shove in another direction, James then asked for what stage Mr. Milton had designed the play; for the managers of the common playhouses would look down their noses at a play in which they found no modernity of incest, murder or bawdry: for those were the only get-penny themes of the day. Besides, as was well known, the new Parliament—in vengeance of Presbyterial Mr. William Prynne, M.P., who by the King’s order had been close-cropped of his ears and long imprisoned for his book Histriomastix, written against players and play-goers—Parliament was resolved to close the theatres altogether, as being beyond hope of reformation. This play which Mr. Milton had described, said James, being in five Acts, was drawn out in time beyond the customary length of a masque or interlude, even were a nobleman found both devout enough to approve the theme and rich enough to bear the expense of staging it.
Mr. Milton rode on pensively for a while and then he said: “I have hopes that, with the alteration of the times, Parliament will be persuaded to act upon a design which I have in mind: which is to borrow from the Attic Greeks their custom of solemn dramatic panagories upon holy days—such as indeed were once presented in this country under the title of ‘mysteries,’ but then indiscriminately and lewdly by companies of tradesmen, not with noble and considered magnificence by command of a sovereign parliament. What I have in mind is, that tragedies of stateliest and most regal ornament should be performed in such places as Westminster Hall or the Great Hall of Christ Church at Oxford, and that stale comic hodgepodges or villainous ranting exhibitions of blood and brutishness should be everywhere by Law forbidden. To a theatre thus renewed and reformed, a millenniary phœnix, I design to bequeath my play.”
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