by John Milton
1238. bulk without spirit vast both ‘vast bulk without courage’ and ‘bulk without an aspiring spirit’ (OED ‘vast’ 3), as in ‘the Prince of Orange and Count Egmont… were of vaster spirits than the rest’ (1650).
1242. Astaroth See PL i 422n.
1243. braveries boasts (OED 1).
1244. *giantship a mocking echo of ‘his worship’, a title of honour used of persons of note.
crestfall’n punning on ‘crest’ as the plume on a knight’s helmet (OED 2).
1245. unconscionable excessive (OED 2b).
1246. sultry *hot with anger (OED 2b).
chafe rage.
1249. Goliah Goliath of Gath. He and his brothers are ‘sons of the giant’ (Hebrew ha rapha) in II Sam. 21. 19 and I Chron. 20. 5. See above, 1068n. M. may have identified him with the Goliath slain by David (I Sam. 17).
1263. rid set free (OED 2a) and kill (OED 6c).
1273. boist’rous violent.
1277. ammunition military supplies (of any kind).
1278. feats… defeats both words derive from Latin facere, and ‘defeat’ could mean ‘undo’ (OED 1).
1283. expedition prompt execution of justice (OED 1).
1286. distracted crazed, mad, insane (OED 5).
1287. patience including ‘suffering’, as in ‘patience and heroic martyrdom’ (PL ix 32).
1288. saints holy persons (the Protestant sense).
1294. sight bereaved loss of sight.
1298. Labouring imposing labour upon (OED 9a).
1300. behind still to come (OED 4).
1303. quaint skilfully made (OED 4). The Public Officer is carrying a wand of office like a Greek herald.
1304. amain at full speed.
1305. habit clothing.
1307. voluble fluent.
1309. remark mark out, distinguish (OED 1).
1312. triumph procession honouring a victory.
1317. heartened strengthened with food (OED 3).
1320. Our Law forbids The second commandment forbids idol-worship (Exod. 20.4–5). Cp. Exod. 23. 24: ‘Thou shalt not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do after their works: but thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their images’.
1324. gymnic gymnastic.
1325. antics clowns.
mummers… mimics mimes.
1328. activity gymnastics, athletics (OED 3).
1333. Regard thyself look out for your own interests.
1342. Joined enjoined, imposed.
1344. Brooks endures.
1346. stoutness rebelliousness (OED 4), courage (OED 2).
1358. prostituting including ‘expose to shameful view’ (OED 3c).
1362. profane from Latin profanus, ‘outside the temple’. Samson’s acts would be all the more ‘profane’ for taking place inside Dagon’s temple.
1369. sentence holds maxim holds true.
1375. his jealousy Cp. Exod. 20. 5: ‘I the Lord thy God am a jealous God’.
1377. dispense with grant (a person) special exemption or release from a law (OED 9).
1380. come off escape (a sense coined by M. in A Masque 647).
1382. rousing *awakening (OED 3).
motions workings of God in the soul (OED 9b). Some critics doubt whether Samson’s motions really do come from God, and ‘motions’ could be inner promptings of any kind (OED 9a). Cp. Shakespeare, Othello I iii 330: ‘we have reason to cool our raging motions’. M. was nevertheless drawn to the positive sense. Cp. A Treatise of Civil Power, ‘the inward perswasive motions of his spirit’ (YP 7. 261). See above, 222n and 422n.
1387–9. If… last Cp. Sophocles, The Women of Trachis 1169–72, where Heracles realizes that the oracle which foretold ‘release from all toil’ actually foretold his death. Samson imagines that this day will be either remarkable or his last. He does not yet know it will be both.
1390. In time thou hast resolved Greek tragic protagonists rarely change their minds ‘in time’. Creon in Sophocles’ Antigone repents too late to save Antigone, Haemon and Eurydice. Cp. also Shakespeare, King Lear V iii 248: ‘Nay, send in time’.
1396. engines means, contrivances (OED 3) and physical engines of war or torture (OED 5).
1397. hamper bind, fetter, entangle.
1400. pernicious fatal.
1402. Because so that.
1410. resolution decision (OED 11). The Officer is praising Samson’s
compliance, not his earlier stubborn resolution.
1419. *well-feasted sole instance in OED.
1420. if aught if in any way.
1422. insolent including ‘immoderate, going beyond the bounds of propriety’ (OED 3).
1431–3. angel… flames See above, 23–4n, 27n.
1435. Spirit… rushed on thee Cp. Judges 13. 25: ‘the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan’. Cp. also Judges 14. 6: ‘the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him’.
1450. I had no will I had no desire to go there.
1453. give ye part let you share.
1454. good success happy outcome. Manoa’s hope for Samson typifies the ‘false dawn’ which often precedes the catastrophe in Greek tragedy. See e.g. Hecuba’s hope for Astyanax in Euripides’ The Trojan Women 700f.
1457. attempted sought to influence by entreaty (OED 7).
1459. prone either ‘grovelling’ (OED 4), suggesting that Manoa has ‘prostrated himself (Carey), or ‘bending forward’ (OED 1).
1461–71. Some… proposed These lines might allude to the various attitudes the Royalists held towards Commonwealth figures such as M.
1467. civil humane, gentle (OED 11).
1470. The… remit ‘It would be magnanimous to give up the rest of their revenge’.
1471. convenient of befitting size (OED 3b).
1478. numbered down paid out (OED 3b).
1479. richest The Book of Judges never says that Manoa was rich.
1484. wanting lacking.
1503. to in addition to.
1507. next next of kin (as Danites).
1512. inhabitation population (OED 3), perhaps imitating a Greek phrase meaning ‘the inhabited earth, the world’.
1515. ruin the act of giving way and falling down, on the part of a building (OED 1a).
1519. dismal fatal, calamitous (OED 2, 3), from Latin dies mali, ‘evil days’.
1520–22. Best… mouth imitating the catastrophe in a Greek tragedy. When a cry is heard off-stage, the chorus will move about distractedly, wondering what to do. See e.g. Aeschylus, Agamemnon 1346–71, Euripides, Hippolytus 782–5, Medea 1275–6, The Bacchae 576–603.
1529. dole the dealing of blows, death (OED sb1 5b) – with puns on ‘sorrow’
(OED sb21) and ‘that which is charitably dealt out’ (OED sb1 5a). Cp. PL iv 893–4.
1534. doubt hesitate, scruple (OED 3).
1535. would fain subscribe would willingly agree.
1536. stay pause, delay.
notice news.
1538. rides post travels quickly (as on post horses).
baits delays (at an inn, to feed the horses).
1539. to our wish just as we would wish.
1541–51. An excited messenger brings dreadful news in many Greek tragedies. The Argument says that the Hebrew messenger speaks ‘confusedly at first’.
1543. erst just now (OED 5b).
1552. accident as yet unexplained occurrence (OED 1).
here heard 1671, corrected to ‘here’ in Errata.
1556. distract confused in mind, shocked.
1557. the sum the gist.
1567. irruption bursting in.
1570. in brief, Samson is dead Cp. Sophocles, Electra 673: ‘in short, Orestes is dead’.
1574. windy vain, worthless (OED 5).
1574–5. conceived… delivery imagined… release (with puns on conception and birth). Notice Abortive, first-born.
1576–7. first-born… frost Cp. Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost I i 100–101 : ‘An envious-sneaping f
rost, / That bites the first-born infants of the spring’.
1584. *self-violence a euphemism for self-murder (OED). Cp. ‘self-preservation’, ‘self-rigorous’, ‘self-displeased’ and ‘self-offence’ in Manoa’s earlier argument against suicide (503–15). On Samson’s suicide, see below, 1664–5n.
1596. Occasions business (OED 6a).
1599. dispatched accomplished, got done.
1603. minded intended (OED 6a).
1605. theatre implying tiers of seats. The Hebrew, LXX, Vulgate, and A.V. of Judges 16. 27 call the building a house.
1608. sort high rank (OED sb2 2b).
in order by rank.
1609. The other side was open Judges mentions no open space, but instead says that 3,000 men and women ‘were upon the roof (16. 27). M. places the common people in an open area so as to spare them. See below, 1659n.
1610. banks benches (OED sb2 1).
scaffolds stands for spectators (OED 5).
1616. livery uniform of a retainer.
1617. timbrels tambourines.
1619. cataphracts *soldiers in full armour (OED 2), heavy cavalry (Latin cataphracti).
spears spearmen.
1621. Rifted split.
1626. still on each occasion.
1627. stupendious stupendous.
1628. antagonist challenger to the ‘agonist’ (contender in the games).
1630. his guide a ‘lad’ in Judges 16. 26.
1637. as one who prayed Cp. Judges 16. 28–30: ‘And Samson called unto the Lord, and said, O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes… Let me die with the Philistines’.
1643. my own accord Wittreich (143) takes this to mean that Samson’s final act is self-motivated, not prompted by God. But the antithesis is between Samson’s own deeds and the Philistines’ commands (1640), not between Samson’s will and God’s. The biblical Samson also employs ‘all his might’ (Judges 16. 30).
1645. strike all who behold Critics hostile to Samson compare the devils’ puns on artillery in PL vi 557–627. But M. had his own taste for cruel or gloating puns. Cp. ‘swim’ in PL xi 625–6 and ‘neck’ in M.’s sonnet To the Lord General Cromwell (5).
1647. winds… pent Subterranean winds were thought to cause earthquakes. See PL i 231n.
1659. The vulgar only ‘scaped only the common people escaped. The Bible says that 3,000 common people were standing on the roof which fell ‘upon the lords, and upon all the people’ (Judges 16. 30). M. has redesigned the temple in order to save the common people. See above, 1609n.
1664. self-killed Theologians had defended Samson’s suicide by arguing that God prompted him to it. See e.g. Augustine, City of God I xxi, xxvi. See further Krouse (37, 49).
1665. Not willingly not eagerly. ‘Willingly’ had ‘several shades of meaning, from ”with acquiesence” to “wishfully, eagerly” ’ (OED 2). Samson acquiesces in God’s will, but he is not eager to die.
tangled in the fold suggesting a serpent’s coils (OED ‘fold’ sb3 1e).
1667. in number more Cp. Judges 16. 30: ‘the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life’.
1669. sublime exalted in feeling, elated (OED 3b), a sense coined by M. in PL x 536, OED’s sole other instance.
1671. fat Mosaic law forbade the eating of fat (Lev. 3. 17).
regorged *gorged to repletion. Not in OED, but the Latin prefix re could be an intensive.
1674. Silo Shiloh, site of the ark of the Covenant at this time.
1682. fond foolish.
1685. Insensate… reprobate ‘left without reason, or left to a depraved reason’. Cp. Rom. 1. 28: ‘God gave them over to a reprobate mind’.
1690. virtue strength, courage.
1692. dragon not the flying, fire-breathing kind, but a large snake (OED 1), such as might enter a barnyard by stealth to prey upon domestic fowl. Samson entered the temple like a cunning snake, but he struck the Philistines like an eagle.
1693. perchèd *furnished with perches (OED 2a).
1695. *villatic belonging to a farm (Latin villaticus).
1696. cloudless thunder unexpected thunder from a clear sky.
1699. self-begotten bird the phoenix, a mythical bird that was consumed by fire every 500 years, then rose from its own ashes. See PL v 272n.
1700. embossed imbosked, hidden in a wood (OED 1b).
1702. holocaust something consumed by fire (OED 2c).
1703. teemed born.
1707. secular living for an age or ages (OED 6).
1709. hath quit himself both ‘has borne himself (OED 3a) and ‘has left his life’.
1713. sons of Caphtor the Philistines, who had immigrated from Caphtor (Jer. 47. 4, Amos 9. 7), thought to be Crete.
1715. hath he hath.
let but them if only they would.
1727. lavers large wash-basins used in Jewish ritual (OED 1b).
1728. what speed as much speed as possible.
1729. plight condition.
1730–33. Will… house Cp. Judges 16. 31: ‘Then his brethren and all the house of his father came down, and took him, and brought him up, and buried him between Zorah and Eshtaol in the burying-place of Manoah his father’.
1735. laurel… palm Both plants symbolized victory, and laurel was also an emblem of distinction in poetry.
1736. enrolled recorded with honour (OED 6).
1737. legend inscription, perhaps suggesting the story of a saint’s life (OED 1).
1745–58. ‘The last choral speech is a Petrarchan sonnet rhyming ABAB, CDCD, EFEFEF’ (Flannagan).
1745–8. All is best… close Cp. the closing choruses in Euripides’ Alcestis,
Medea, The Bacchae, Andromache, and Helen, all of which insist that the gods’ will is inscrutable.
1746. dispose ordering of things (OED 2).
1749. hide his face Cp. Ps. 30. 7: ‘Thou didst hide thy face, and I was troubled’ (also 27. 9, 104. 29).
1751. in place at hand (OED 19b).
1755. acquist acquisition.
THE LATIN AND GREEK POEMS
1645 was divided into two sections with separate title-pages. The poems in the first section were in English (or Italian); those in the second section were in Latin (or Greek). The second section was further subdivided into a book of elegies (Elegiarum Liber), and a miscellany (Silvarum Liber). Two Latin poems were added in 1673, and the Greek poem In Effigiei eius Sculptorem (which had appeared on the frontispiece of 1645) was placed after the other two Greek poems in the main body of the text.
ELEGIARUM LIBER [A BOOK OF ELEGIES]
These poems are called ‘elegies’ because they are written in the elegiac metre (see Elegia I 92n, Elegia VI 8n). The term ‘elegy’ does not imply that the poems are poems of mourning (even though two of them are).
Elegia Prima. Ad Carolum Diodatum [Elegy I, To Charles Diodati]
Date: spring 1626. Charles Diodati, the son of Italian Protestants living in London, had been M.’s closest friend at St Paul’s School. Their friendship continued into early manhood, and M. mourned Diodati’s premature death in Epitaphium Damonis (1639). Diodati went up to Oxford in 1623; M. was admitted to Christ’s College, Cambridge, two years later on 12 February 1625. Near the end of his first year, in the Lent term of 1626, M. was apparently rusticated (suspended) after a misunderstanding with his tutor, William Chappell. M. wrote this poem during his temporary exile.
4. Vergivium… salum [Vergivian Sea] the Irish Sea.
14. Phoebicolis [votaries of Phoebus] poets.
15. duri… magistri [stern tutor] William Chappell. Aubrey reports M.’s brother Christopher as saying that M. received ‘some unkindness’ from Chappell. Aubrey adds that ‘he whipped him’ (Darbishire 10). M. was assigned a new tutor, Nathaniel Tovey, on his return to Cambridge.
21. vates [poet] Ovid. He was banished to Tomis on the Black Sea by Augustus in 8 AD, partly due to hi
s notorious Ars Amatoria, and partly due to a mysterious scandal involving Augustus’s family. He died in exile ten years later.
23. Ionio… Homero [Ionian Homer] Homer wrote in the Ionic dialect, and was often supposed to be a native of Ionia.
24. Maro Virgil.
27. theatri Although M. speaks as a spectator, the details of lines 29–46 recall Greek and Roman, rather than English, drama.
37. furiosa Tragoedia sceptrum [raging Tragedy… sceptre] Cp. II Penseroso 97–100 and Ovid’s description of ‘raging Tragedy’ (violentia Tragoedia) wielding her sceptre (Amores III i 11–13).
45. Pelopeia domus [house of Pelops] Pelops’s descendants Atreus, Thyestes, Agamemnon, Orestes, Electra and Iphigeneia appear in many ancient tragedies. Cp. II Penseroso 99–100.
lli [Ilus] the mythical founder of Troy (Ilium).
46. aula Creontis [Creon’s palace] the royal house of Thebes. The incestuous forebears are Jocasta (Creon’s sister) and her son Oedipus.
57. bis vivi Pelopis [twice-living Pelops] The gods restored Pelops to life after his father Tantalus had served him to them in a stew. They gave Pelops a shoulder of ivory to replace the one Demeter had eaten (Ovid, Met. vi 403–11). Marlowe compares beautiful white skin to Pelops’s shoulder in Hero and Leander (1598) i 64–5.
62. floris [flower] the anemone, which sprang from Adonis’s blood (Ovid, Met. x 735–9). The hyacinth (61) was also once a beautiful youth. See Fair Infant 23–7 and Lycidas 105–7.
63. Heroides alluding to Ovid’s poem of that name.
65. Achaemeniae Persian (from Achaemenes, the legendary founder of the Persian royal house).
turrita fronte [turreted foreheads] the goddess Cybele wore a towered crown (see Arcades 21–2n). Women in the seventeenth century also wore a high head-dress called a ‘tower’ (OED 6b).
66. Susa the winter capital of the Persian kings.
Ninon Nineveh, the Syrian capital. Strictly speaking, Susa (not Nineveh) was associated with Memnon. See PL x 308n.
67. Danaae [Danaan] a Homeric term for ‘Greek’.
69. Tarpeia Musa [Tarpeian Muse] Ovid. He lived near the Tarpeian rock (Tristia I iii 29–30) and recommended Pompey’s colonnade and the theatre as places to meet women (Ars Amatoria i 67, iii 387).
70. Ausoniis [Ausonian] Italian.
73. Dardaniis [Dardanian] Trojan. Britain was supposedly colonized by Trojan exiles. See Q Nov 2n.