by John Milton
3.. jealous including ‘suspicious, fearful’ (OED 5).
5.. virtue] TMS; valour 1694. ‘Virtue’ here includes ‘courage, valour’ (OED 7).
6.. though] TMS; while 1694.
6–7. rebellions… Hydra heads The Hydra was a many-headed serpent killed by Hercules. When one head was cut off, two more grew in its place. displays spreads out as a banner or like a dragon’s wings. Cp. Spenser, FQ I xi 10.
7–8. false North… broken league The Scots (who had been Parliament’s allies) invaded England in support of the King on 8 July 1648. The invasion violated the Solemn League and Covenant (1643). The proximity of North to serpent associates Scotland with Satan, whose throne was in the North (Isa. 14. 13; cp. PL v 689, 726).
8.. imp… wings engraft feathers onto a bird’s wing so as to improve its powers of flight (OED ‘imp’ 4). Hydras were not winged, but a controverted word in Euripides’ Ion 195 may have suggested that they were.
their] TMS; her 1694.
10. war, but endless] TMS; war, but acts of 1694.
still continually.
11. truth, and right] TMS; injured truth 1694.
12.. public faith Honigmann shows that the phrase referred to a much-resented ‘form of National Debt’. Parliament had borrowed money from private creditors ‘on the public faith’, and used the same catch-phrase to fob off the army, whose pay was in arrears. M. condemns Parliament’s abuse of ‘The Publick Faith’ in his Character of the Long Parliament (YP 5.444).
To the Lord General Cromwell, May 1652
The sonnet addresses Cromwell as a member of the Committee for the Propagation of the Gospel (hence the full TMS title, followed in this edition). The Committee had been appointed on 10 February 1652 to settle the state of religion in England. On 18 February John Owen and other Independents on the Committee proposed to set up an Established Church, with a paid clergy, and with certain limits to liberty of dissent. M. urges Cromwell to defend religious liberty, and to make no provision for a stipendiary clergy.
1.. who through a cloud] TMS; that through a crowd 1694. M.’s cloud recalls Aeneas enduring a ‘war-cloud’ (nubem belli) of javelins (Virgil, Aen. x 809). Cp. also Marvell, ‘An Horatian Ode’ (1650), which describes Cromwell as lightning ‘Breaking the clouds where it was nursed’ (14).
2.. detractions] TMS; distractions 1694. Cromwell was a target for slanders, but M. might also be punning on the now obsolete sense of ‘detractions’ as ‘delays’ (OED 3). Cromwell had forced the King’s execution through Parliament.
4. peace and truth The words ‘Truth and Peace’ appeared on a coin issued by Parliament to honour Cromwell’s victories at Preston, Dunbar and Worcester (Hughes). They were a catch-phrase among the Parliamentarians (Honigmann 146–7).
5. neck of crownéd Fortune alluding to the execution of Charles I. Cp. Josh. 10. 24: ‘Come near, put your feet upon the necks of these kings’. Phillips wisely omitted the line from 1694.
6. reared God’s trophies alluding to the ancient Greek custom of raising monuments of victory on a battlefield.
7. Darwen a small stream near Preston, where Cromwell routed the Scottish Covenanters under the Duke of Hamilton (17–19 August 1648).
imbrued stained with blood.
8. Dunbar where Cromwell defeated the Covenanters under Leslie (3 September 1650).
9. Worcester’s laureate wreath Cromwell crushed the Covenanters under Charles II at Worcester on 3 September 1651. He described the battle as his ‘crowning mercy’.
12.. secular chains alluding to the proposals that Parliament should enforce the limits of religious toleration.
14.. hireling The proposals of 1652 provided for a stipendiary clergy, paid by the government. M. believed that ministers should support themselves. Cp. John 10. 13: ‘The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep’.
wolves Matt. 7. 15, Acts 20. 29. Cp. PL iv 183–93, xii 508–11.
maw belly, appetite. Cp. Phil. 3. 19: ‘whose God is their belly’.
To Sir Henry Vane the Younger
Date: June–July 1652. The sonnet was first published in George Sikes’s Life and Death of Sir Henry Vane (1662) 93–4, where it is introduced by the words: ‘The Character of this deceased Statesman… I shall exhibite to you in a paper of Verses, composed by a learned Gentleman, and sent him, July 3. 1652’. The sonnet also appears in TMS, in the hand of an amanuensis, and with the present title (crossed through). Phillips’s text (1694) is very poor.
Sir Henry Vane (1613–62) was called ‘the Younger’ to distinguish him from his father, who lived until 1655. Vane had been Governor of Massachusetts (1635–7) and Treasurer of the Navy (1639–50). His good services in the latter capacity prepared the way for Blake’s victories over the Dutch. In Parliament, Vane always championed the Puritan cause, and as a lay member of the Assembly of Divines (from 1643) he advocated religious toleration. He disapproved of the King’s execution, but joined the Council of State soon afterwards. He finally broke with Cromwell in 1653 when Cromwell dissolved the Long Parliament. He was executed in 1662 after the King’s Restoration.
1. young… counsel old Cp. Sylvester, DWW, The Fathers (1608) 109: ‘Isaac, in yeares young, but in wisedome growne’. Vane was nearly forty in 1652; M. was forty-three.
2. senator from Latin senex, ‘old’, playing against young (Honigmann).
3.. helm of the ship of state.
gowns togas worn by Roman senators. The phrase gowns not arms alludes to the ancient maxim cedant arma togae (‘let arms yield to the toga’), quoted by Cicero in De Officiis I xxii 77.
4.. fierce Epirot Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, invaded Italy in 280 BC. He often defeated the Romans, but could not break their spirit. M. in Defensio Secunda says that Appius Claudius ‘delivered Italy from Pyrrhus’ by opposing his peace proposals with a stirring speech in the Senate (YP 4. 585).
the African Hannibal invaded Italy in 219 BC and inflicted numerous defeats on the Romans. M. praises the Senate’s spirit of resistance in Areopagitica (YP 2. 557).
6.. drift scheme, plot (OED 5).
hollow insincere, false (OED 5), with a pun on ‘Holland’ (as states puns on ‘States-General’). Shots had been exchanged between the English and Dutch fleets in May 1652, but the Dutch ambassadors remained in London until 30 June, claiming to want peace. Many suspected them of espionage.
spelled discovered by close observation (OED v22a).
7.. upheld once assented to (OED 4), with overtones of ‘kept from sinking’ (OED 1). Move and equipage carry on the image of war as a launched ship. Vane had prepared the navy.
8.. nerves sinews (thought to be the source of strength).
iron and gold M. in his Commonplace Book twice noted Machiavelli’s dictum (Discorsi ii 10) that iron, not gold, is the sinew (il nervo) of war (YP I. 414–15, 498). M. might also be referring to a defiant utterance by one of the Dutch ambassadors on 30 June 1652: ‘The English are about to attack a mountain of gold; we are about to attack a mountain of iron’ (Honigmann).
9.. equipage apparatus of war, tackle of a ship (OED 3).
12.. either sword the civil and the spiritual power. In Observations on the Articles of Peace M. identifies the spiritual sword as ‘the Word of God’ (YP 3–324).
To Mr Cyriack Skinner upon his Blindness
Date: early 1655 or late 1654 (see lines 1–3). On Skinner, see headnote to Sonnet XVIII (‘Cyriack, whose grandsire’). The present edition follows TMS except for the title, which is found only in 1694. The TMS copy is in a hand that Peter Beal has identified as Skinner’s own. See headnote to Sonnet XVIII.
1.. this three years’ day for the past three years (OED ‘day’ 11). The idiom does not imply an anniversary of the day when M. lost his sight. 1–2. clear… spot M. took pride in his personal appearance. In Defensio Secunda (YP 4. 583) he insists that blindness had not disfigured him – an opinion confirmed by Skinner in what is now known to be his biography of M. (Darbishire 32).
3.
light eyesight (OED 4).
4. orbs eyes (OED 10). In earlier usage, the word implied a Petrarchan conceit of eyes as stars, as in ‘her bright Eyes (the Orbes which Beauty move)’ (Drummond). M.’s idle orbs are implicitly contrasted with sun or moon or star (5).
doth sight appear] TMS; doth day appear 1694. Cp. PL iii 41–2: ‘but not to me returns / Day’.
7. bate a jot] TMS; bate one jot 16Q4. lessen the least part. Cp. Shakespeare, Coriolanus II ii 144–5: ‘neither will they bate / One jot of ceremony’.
8. bear up uphold principles (OED 21a), *keep up courage (OED 21c, earliest instance 1656). The context (steer / Right onward) also invites a play on the nautical sense ‘bring the helm “up” so as to sail against the wind’ (OED 37).
9. Right onward] Uphillward TMS 1st reading.
10.. conscience including ‘inward knowledge’ (OED ia).
*overplied overworked, with a pun on ‘ply’ in the nautical sense ‘beat up against the wind’ (OED v2 6).
11. In liberty’s defence In Defensio Secunda M. reports that his physicians had warned him that he would lose his sight if he answered Salmasius’s Defensio Regia. M. chose to do his duty, even though it would cost him his sight (YP 4. 588).
12. all Europe talks] TMS; all Europe rings 1694. John Aubrey reports that ‘the only inducement of severall foreigners that came over into England, was chiefly to see O. Protector & Mr. J. Milton,… he was much more admired abrode then at home’ (Darbishire 7).
13. masque masquerade, false show, with overtones of Royalist court masques.
14. had I no better guide implying that M. does have a better guide, in Heaven. 1694 reads ‘other guide’.
’Fix Here…’
Date: April 1638? M. wrote this curious little poem of two lines on the back of a brief letter sent him by Henry Lawes. The letter contained M.’s exit visa and was therefore probably written just before M. went abroad in April 1638. The letter was discovered with M.’s Commonplace Book and was first published in 1876.
1.. *overdated OED’s earliest instance is from Of Reformation (1641), where M. expresses his contempt for ‘overdated Ceremonies’. ‘Overdated’ there means ‘out of date’ or ‘gone on too long’.
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE PROSE WORKS
From Of Reformation (1641)
All three translations allude to the Donation of Constantine, by which the Emperor Constantine was believed to have endowed Pope Sylvester I with the western part of his empire. M. believed that Constantine’s gift had ‘marr’d all in the Church’ (YP 1. 558). He cites Dante, Petrarch and Ariosto as Roman Catholic poets who shared his view.
From The Reason of Church Government (1641)
The line translates a favourite saying of the Emperor Tiberius. Several ancient sources report the saying, and Jonson quotes it in Sejanus II 330. The ultimate source may be Euripides’ lost play, Bellerophon. M. in his prose tract attributes Tiberius’s cruel selfishness to the bishops, who would drag down the monarchy with them ‘in a generall ruine’ (YP 1. 770).
From An Apology for Smectymnuus (1642)
M. cites Horace and Sophocles to justify his satirical and harsh treatment of the bishops (YP 1. 904–5).
(v) 3. junkets sweetmeats, knacks choice dishes.
From the title-page of Areopagitica (1644)
M.’s version of Euripides is not quite so embracing of freedom as is the original Greek. Where Euripides extends free speech to anyone who ‘wishes’ to advise the city, M. speaks of those who ‘can, and will’ offer advice. M.’s ‘can’ is potentially restrictive for it implies that there are some who are unable (and so, perhaps, unfit) to ‘advise the public’, even if they want to do so.
From Tetrachordon (1645)
M. cites Horace in his divorce pamphlet because he wants to expose the hypocrisy of those who ‘care only to live by the outward constraint of law’, when they ought to follow ‘the inward and uncompell’d actions of vertue’ (YP 2.639).
From The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649)
M.’s pamphlet appeared on 13 February 1649, a fortnight after King Charles’s execution, which it defended. Seneca’s lines are spoken by Hercules after he has killed the tyrant Lycus.
From The History of Britain (1670)
The first four books of M.’s History were written in 1649. Passages (xi) and (xii) are translations of Geoffrey of Monmouth, Historia Regum Britanniae I xi. In (xi) Brutus prays to Diana; in (xii) Diana replies. Brutus is the mythical Trojan founder of Britain.
Passage (xiii) is taken from the medieval chronicle, Flores Historiarum. The murder of the child-king Kenelm is related in the account of AD 821. A dove miraculously appeared above the altar of St Peter’s in Rome, and dropped a note revealing the location of Kenelm’s body. M.’s lines translate a Latin version of the note. M. himself dismisses the story with contempt (YP 5. 252).
PARADISE LOST
M.’s great epic is the culmination of two ambitions. Since his youth M. had wanted to write an epic. He refers to the hope in Elegia VI, Mansus, Epitaphium Damonis and elsewhere – but his plan had been to write an Arthuriad. He had also planned to write a tragedy about the Fall of Man. Edward Phillips reports that part of Satan’s address to the sun (iv 32–41) was shown to him ‘several Years before the Poem was begun’, when it was intended to be ‘the very beginning’ of a tragedy (Darbishire 72). Aubrey reports that M. began writing PL in earnest in about 1658 and finished in about 1663 (Darbishire 13). The invocation to book vii was clearly written after the Restoration.
When first published in 1667, PL was a poem often books. Critics often see this ten-book scheme as a vestige of M.’s original dramatic design, a double five-act structure. An alternative model is Tasso’s twenty-book epic Gerusalemme Liberata, to which M. often alludes in PL. For the second edition of 1674, M. split books vii and x into two, thus creating a twelve-book epic. His model here is Virgil’s twelve-book Aeneid. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey each have twenty-four books, so the second edition of PL has the same relation to them as the first edition had had to Jerusalem Delivered.
The Verse, line 4. invention of a barbarous age Latin poets first began to use rhyme in Christian hymns of the fifth and sixth centuries.
line 14. apt numbers appropriate rhythm.
quantity number.
line 21. the first in English An exaggeration. The Earl of Surrey, who introduced blank verse into England, had used it in his translation of selections of Virgil’s Aeneid (an heroic poem).
BOOK I
The Argument, line 9. centre (centre of) the earth.
line 10. yet not made Our universe was created after Satan fell from Heaven (vii 131–5), but before he escaped from Hell (ii 830–32, 1004–6).
line 11. utter utter and outer.
line 23. angels… Fathers Cp. CD i 7: ‘many of the Greek Fathers, and some of the Latin, were of the opinion that angels… existed long before this world’ (trans. Carey, YP6. 313). Fathers who shared M.’s view included Jerome, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzen, Basil, and Chrysostom.
1.. man’s mankind’s and Adam’s (Adam in Hebrew means ‘man’). fruit including ‘consequences’.
4.. one greater man Christ, the Second Adam (Romans 5. 19). Homer (Od. i 1) and Virgil (Aen. i 1) had sung of one ‘man’; M. will sing of two. 6–16. The identity of M.’s Muse remains a mystery, despite attempts to see her as Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. M.’s widow identified her as ‘God’s grace, and the Holy Spirit’ (Newton lvi). See below, 17n. See also iii 19n, vii 1–12, and ix 21–4.
8.. That shepherd Moses, the supposed author of Genesis. He was tending sheep on Mount Horeb (Oreb), when God called him (Exod. 3.1). He later received the Law on Horeb, or Sinai, one of Horeb’s spurs (Exod. 19. 20).
10.. out of Chaos M. believed that God created the universe out of unformed matter, not out of nothing. See CD i 7.
Sion hill Mount Zion, the site of Solomon’s Temple.
11.. Siloa’s brook a spring near the Temple. Jesus cur
ed a blind man with its waters (John 9. 7).
12.. oracle the sanctuary housing the ark of the Covenant in Solomon’s Temple (I Kings 6. 19).
15. Aonian mount Helicon, sacred to the Muses. Porter (45–7) sees a specific allusion to Hesiod, whom the Muses visited while he tended his flocks on Helicon. Hesiod sang how ‘from the beginning’, ‘heaven and earth and all things rose out of Chaos’ (Theog. 115–16).
16. Things… rhyme translating Ariosto, Orl. Fur. i 2: Cosa non detta in prosa mai, né in rima. Cp. also Horace, Odes III i 2–3: ‘songs never heard before’.
17. Spirit the Holy Spirit, despite M.’s insistence in CD i 6 that the Holy Spirit is never invoked in the Bible (YP 6. 295). Dove-like (21) points to the doves of Mark 1. 10, Luke 3. 22 and John 1. 32, which even CD identifies with ‘the actual person of the Holy Spirit, or its symbol’ (trans. Carey, YP 6. 285). If chiefly refers to thou, Spirit and Muse are distinct; if to Instruct (19), they are identical.
19.. Instruct Latin instruere, ‘to build’, linking temples and heart.
21–2. brooding Cp. Gen. 1. 2. M. follows Junius-Tremellius (incubabat) rather than A.V. (‘moved’) and so preserves the image of a brooding dove.
24. argument subject-matter (OED 6).
25. assert defend, take the part of (OED 2).
26. justify both ‘justify to men’ and ‘ways of God to men’.
28. what cause echoing Virgil, Aen. i 8: Musa mihi causas memor (‘tell me the cause, O Muse’).