by John Milton
25
Addideratque iras, sed et has decuisse putares,
Addideratque truces, nec sine felle minas.
Et miser exemplo sapuisses tutiùs, inquit,
Nunc mea quid possit dextera testis eris.
Inter et expertos vires numerabere nostras,
30
Et faciam vero per tua damna fidem.
Ipse ego, si nescis, strato Pythone superbum
Edomui Phœbum, cessit et ille mihi;4
Et quoties meminit Peneidos, ipse fatetur
Certiùs et graviùs tela nocere mea.
35
Me nequit adductum curvare peritiùs arcum,
Qui post terga solet vincere Parthus eques.5
Cydoniusque mihi cedit venator,6 et ille
Inscius uxori qui necis author7 erat.
Est etiam nobis ingens quoque victus Orion,8
40
Herculeæque manus, Herculeusque comes.9
Jupiter ipse licet sua fulmina torqueat in me,
Hærebunt lateri spicula nostra Jovis.
Cætera quæ dubitas meliùs mea tela docebunt,
Et tua non leviter corda petenda mihi.
45
Nec te, stulte, tuæ poterunt defendere Musæ,
Nec tibi Phœbæus porriget anguis10 opem.
Dixit, et aurato quatiens mucrone sagittam,
Evolat in tepidos Cypridos ille sinus.
At mihi risuro tonuit ferus ore minaci,
50
Et mihi de puero non metus ullus erat.
Et modò quà nostri spatiantur in urbe Quirites
Et modò villarum proxima rura placent.
Turba frequens, faciéque simillima turba dearum
Splendida per medias itque reditque vias.
55
Auctaque luce dies gemino fulgore coruscat.
Fallor? an et radios hinc quoque Phœbus habet?
Hæc ego non fugi spectacula grata severus,
Impetus et quò me fert juvenilis, agor.
Lumina luminibus malè providus obvia misi,
60
Neve oculos potui continuisse meos.
Unam forte aliis supereminuisse notabam,
Principium nostri lux erat illa mali.
Sic Venus optaret mortalibus ipsa videri,
Sic regina Deûm11 conspicienda fuit.
65
Hanc memor objecit nobis malus ille Cupido,
Solus et hos nobis texuit antè dolos.
Nec procul ipse vafer latuit, multæque sagittæ,
Et facis a tergo grande pependit onus.
Nec mora, nunc ciliis hæsit, nunc virginis ori,
70
Insilit hinc labiis, insidet inde genis:
Et quascunque agilis partes jaculator oberrat,
Hei mihi, mille locis pectus inerme ferit.
Protinus insoliti subierunt corda furores,
Uror amans intùs, flammaque totus eram.
75
Interea misero quæ jam mihi sola placebat,
Ablata est oculis non reditura meis.
Ast ego progredior tacitè querebundus, et excors,
Et dubius volui sæpe referre pedem.
Findor, et hæc remanet, sequitur pars altera votum,
80
Raptaque tàm subitò gaudia flere juvat.
Sic dolet amissum proles Junonia12 cœlum,
Inter Lemniacos præcipitata focos.
Talis et abreptum solem respexit, ad Orcum
Vectus ab attonitis Amphiaraus13 equis.
85
Quid faciam infelix, et luctu victus? Amores
Nec licet inceptos ponere, neve sequi.
O utinam spectare semel mihi detur amatos
Vultus, et coràm tristia verba loquil
Forsitan et duro non est adamante creata,
90
Forte nec ad nostras surdeat illa preces.
Crede mihi nullus sic infeliciter arsit,
Ponar in exemplo primus et unus ego.
Parce, precor, teneri cum sis Deus ales amoris,
Pugnent officio nec tua facta tuo.
95
Jam tuus O certè est mihi formidabilis arcus,
Nate deâ, jaculis nec minus igne potens:
Et tua fumabunt nostris altaria donis,
Solus et in superis tu mihi summus eris.
Deme meos tandem, verùm nec deme furores,
100
Nescio cur, miser est suaviter omnis amans:
Tu modo da facilis, posthæc mea siqua futura est,
Cuspis amaturos figat ut una duos.
Elegy 7
Not yet did I know your laws, enticing Amathusia,1 / and my breast was free from Paphian fire. / Often Cupid’s arrows, childish weapons, / and especially your divine will I contemned, O Love. / You, boy, I said, pierce peace-loving doves; [5] / gentle battles are becoming to a tender warrior, / or, over the sparrows, little one, achieve your arrogant triumphs; / these are the suitable trophies of your warfare. / Why do you aim your vain darts at mankind? / Against strong men that quiver of yours has no power. [10] / This the Cyprian boy would not bear—and indeed no god is swifter / to anger—and straightaway fierce he burned with double fire. / Spring it was, and beaming through the heights of the village roofs, / the light had brought to you your first day, O May. / But my eyes still were seeking the vanishing night, [15] / nor could they endure the morning radiance. / Love stood by my bed, Love the indefatigable with painted wings; / the moving quiver betrayed the standing god; / his face betrayed him, and his sweetly menacing little eyes, / and whatever else was fitting to youth and to Love. [20] / In like manner did the Sigean youth2 on everlasting Olympus / mix the overflowing cups for amorous Jove, / or rather Hylas,3 who lured the lovely nymphs to his kisses, / son of Theomadas, carried off by a Naiad. / And his anger grew, but you would have thought it to be proper [25] / and his harsh threats increased, not without gall. / “Wretch, you might more safely have learned from example,” he said; / “now you shall be a witness to what my right hand can do. / And you shall be counted among the men who have experienced my powers, / and as a result of your penalty, truly, I shall achieve your faithfulness. [30] / I myself, if you do not know, overcame Apollo, / and he yielded to me, proud from subduing Python,4 / and, as often as he remembers Daphne, he acknowledges / that my arrows harm more surely and more gravely. / The Parthian horseman who is wont to conquer behind his back5 [35] / cannot draw his taut bow more skillfully than I. / And the Cydonian hunter6 yields to me, and he / who was the unwitting author7 of his wife’s death. / Likewise was prodigious Orion8 also vanquished by me, / and the powers of Hercules, and the companion of Hercules.9 [40] / Even if Jove himself hurls his bolts at me / my darts shall hold fast to the side of Jove. / Whatever else you doubt my arrows shall more surely instruct / and your own heart will not be lightly assaulted by me. / Neither will your Muses be able to protect you, fool, [45] / nor will the serpent of Apollo’s son10 extend help to you.” / He spoke, and, shaking an arrow with a golden point, / he flew to the warm bosom of Cypris. / But to me the fierce lad thundered with threatening face laughably, / and to me there was nothing to fear from the boy. [50] / And sometimes places in the city where our inhabitants walk / and sometimes the nearby fields of the villages are pleasing. / A great shining throng resembling the visages of goddesses / come and go through the trodden ways. / And with their added light the day gleams with double splendor. [55] / Am I deceived? or is it from them that Apollo also obtains his rays? / I did not austerely shun these pleasurable sights, / but was guided where the impulse of youth led me. / I sent my glances to meet their looks, / poorly cautious, nor could I have restrained my eyes. [60] / By chance I remarked one surpassing all others; / her radiance was the beginning of my misfortune. / Thus Venus herself might choose to appear to mortals, / thus was the queen of the gods11 worthy of attention. / That wicked Cupid, remembering, cast her before me, [65] / and he alone has woven these snares in my path. / Not far off the cunning one himself was h
iding with his many arrows, / and the burden of his mighty torch weighed down his back. / Without delay, he now was fixed on the eyelids, now on the mouth of the maid. / Then he sprang upon her lips, thereupon he lighted on her cheek, [70] / and wherever the agile dart-thrower flits in his office— / alas for me! he strikes my defenseless breast in a thousand places. / Forthwith unaccustomed passions assailed my heart; / I burned with love inwardly, and was all in flame. / Meanwhile she who alone now was delighting me with misery [75] / was borne off, never to return to my eyes. / But I went forth silently complaining, and without understanding / and uncertain I often wished to retrace my step. / I am torn apart; part stays behind, the other follows my desire, / and I was happy to weep for pleasures so suddenly snatched away. [80] / Thus lamented Juno’s child12 for his lost heaven, / cast down among the hearths of Lemnos, / and such was Amphiaraus,13 carried off to Hell by his terrified horses, / when he looked back on the vanished sun. / What should I do, unhappy and by sorrow overcome? Incipient love [85] / one is not permitted to dismiss or to pursue. / O if only it were granted me once to look upon her beloved / features, and to relate my sad words in her presence! / Perhaps she is not made of hard adamant, / perhaps she would not be deaf to my prayers. [90] / Believe me, no one burned so unhappily with love; / I may be considered the foremost and only example. / Spare me, I pray, since you are the winged god of gentle love; / do not let your deeds contend with your duty. / Now O child of the goddess, your fearful bow [95] / is assuredly to me no less powerful than fire / and your altars will smoke with my gifts. / To me you will be the only one and the greatest one among the supreme gods. / Take away, at least, my passions, yet do not take them; / I do not know why, every lover is sweetly wretched. [100] / Only grant, courteous one, if hereafter any maiden is to be mine, / that a single point shall transfix the two in love.
(May 1630)
* * *
1 Venus.
2 the beautiful youth Ganymede.
3 He was drawn into a spring by the water nymphs who were enamored of his beauty.
4 When he killed the dragon of Delphi, Apollo boasted his archery greater than Cupid’s, and so was smitten with unrequited love for Daphne.
5 The successful Parthian method of fighting was to turn one’s horse as if in flight after each arrow was discharged.
6 Cydon in southern Crete was noted for its archers.
7 Cephalus, who accidentally killed Procris.
8 The hunter Orion’s pursuit of the Pleiades caused them and him to be turned into constellations.
9 perhaps Theseus, whose marriages to Ariadne, Hippolyta, and Phaedra ended unhappily. Theseus was well known as the only one who stood by Hercules after he had killed his wife and children.
10 The attribute of Aesculapius was the snake, a symbol of rejuvenescence and thus of healing.
11 Juno.
12 Vulcan.
13 A seer, Amphiaraus foreknew his death in the conflict with the Seven against Thebes.
(Lines appended to Elegia septima)1
Hæc ego mente olim lævâ, studioque supino
Nequitiæ posui vana trophæa meæ.
Scilicet abreptum sic me malus impulit error,
Indocilisque ætas prava magistra fuit.
5
Donec Socraticos umbrosa Academia rivos
Præbuit, admissum dedocuitque jugum.
Protinus extinctis ex illo tempore flammis,
Cincta rigent multo pectora nostra gelu.
Unde suis frigus metuit puer ipse Sagittis,
10
Et Diomedéam2 vim timet ipsa Venus.
(Lines appended to Elegy 7)1
I with foolish mind and heedless zeal formerly / erected these idle monuments to my wantonness. / Undoubtedly mischievous error impelled me, thus carried off, / and my ignorant youth was a perverse teacher, / until the shady Academy proffered its Socratic streams [5] / and untaught the admitted yoke. / Directly, with the flames from that time extinct, / my encircled breast congealed with ice, / from which the boy himself dreaded frigidity for his arrows, / and Venus herself is afraid of my Diomedean2 strength. [10]
(1630 ?)
* * *
1 The study of Plato and his Academy moved Milton to disavow, probably not seriously, the affectation of some of his early verse. The “monuments to my wantonness” are therefore perhaps the various poems in Latin and English dealing with awakening amorousness, although usually only El. 7 is suggested.
2 The Greek warrior Diomedes wounded Venus during the Trojan War after she tried to protect Aeneas (Iliad, V, 334–46).
Song: On May Morning1
Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
5
Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
Woods and Groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and Dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
10
And welcom thee, and wish thee long.
(May 1630 ?)
* * *
1 The song itself, ll. 5-8, is in the meter of Epitaph on the Marchioness, L’Allegro, and Il Penseroso.
Sonnet 11
O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray
Warbl’st at eeve, when all the Woods are still,2
Thou with fresh hope the Lovers heart dost fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May;
5
Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day,
First heard before the shallow Cuccoo’s bill
Portend success in love; O if Jove’s will
Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude Bird of Hate
10
Foretell my hopeles doom in som Grove nigh:
As thou from yeer to yeer hast sung too late
For my relief; yet hadst no reason why.
Whether the Muse, or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.
(May 1630 ?)
* * *
1 In the immediate background is the lyric The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, probably by Thomas Clanvowe though attributed to Chaucer in Milton’s day.
2 Compare El. 5, 25-26.
Sonnet 2
Donna leggiadra, il cui bel nome honora
L’herbosa val di Rheno, e il nobil varco,1
Ben è colui d’ogni valore scarco
Qual tuo spirto gentil non innamora,
5
Che dolcemente mostrasi di fuora
De’ suoi atti soavi giamai parco,
E i don’, che son d’amor saette ed arco,
Là onde l’alta tua virtu s’infiora.
Quando tu vaga parli, o lieta canti
10
Che mover possa duro alpestre legno,
Guardi ciascun a gli occhi, ed a gli orecchi
L’entrata, chi di te si truova indegno;
Gratia sola di sù gli vaglia, inanti
Che’l disio amoroso al cuor s’invecchi.
Sonnet 2
Charming lady, she whose beautiful name honors / the verdant valley of Reno, and the illustrious ford,1 / justly is he of every worth discharged / whom your noble soul does not inspire with love, / for it sweetly shows itself from without, [5] / in its gentle acts never sparing, / and the gifts which are the arrows and bow of Love, / there where your high virtue flowers. / When you so sweetly speak or gaily sing / that its power stirs the obdurate alpine wood, [10] / let everyone who finds himself unworthy of you / guard the entrance to the eyes and to the ears; / grace alone from above enables him to withstand / the amorous desire which would lodge itself in his heart.
(1630 ?)
* * *
1 As Smart showed, the lady is one Aemilia, the name o
f the Italian province through which flow the Reno and the Rubicon with its famous ford. Her family name and relationship to Milton remain unknown.
Sonnet 3
Qual in colle aspro, al’ imbrunir di sera,
L’avezza giovinetta pastorella
Va bagnando l’herbetta strana e bella
Che mal si spande a disusata spera,
5
Fuor di sua natía alma primavera,
Così Amor meco insù la lingua snella
Desta il fior novo di strania favella,
Mentre io di te, vezzosamente altera,
Canto, dal mio buon popol non inteso,
10
E’l bel Tamigi cangio col bel Arno.1
Amor lo volse, ed io a l’altrui peso
Seppi ch’Amor cosa mai volse indarno.
Deh! foss’il mio cuor lento e’l duro seno
A chi pianta dal ciel si buon terreno.
Sonnet 3
As on a rugged mountain at the darkening of evening, / the accustomed youthful shepherdess / goes watering the alien and beautiful little plant / that hardly spreads forth in that strange clime, / away from its native, nourishing spring, [5] / so Love on my alert tongue / awakens the new flower of foreign speech / while I sing of you, gracefully noble lady, / by my good countrymen not understood, / and the fair Thames change with the fair Arno.1 [10] / Love willed it, and I at the expense of others / know that Love never willed anything in vain. / Oh! were my sluggish heart and hard breast / as good soil for him who plants from heaven.
(1630 ?)
* * *