Complete Poetry and Selected Prose of John Milton
Page 13
1 that is, exchange English for Italian. The Arno flows through the province of Tuscany, whose dialect had become standard Italian.
Canzone1
Ridonsi donne e giovani amorosi
M’accostandosi attorno, e perche scrivi,
Perche tu scrivi in lingua ignota e strana
Verseggiando d’amor, e come t’osi?
5
Dinne, se la tua speme sia mai vana,
E de’ pensieri lo miglior t’arrivi;
Così mi van burlando, altri rivi,
Altri lidi t’aspettan, ed altre onde
Nelle cui verdi sponde
10
Spuntati ad hor, ad hor a la tua chioma
L’immortal guiderdon d’eterne frondi.
Perche alle spalle tue soverchia soma?
Canzon, dirotti, e tu per me rispondi.
Dice mia Donna, e’l suo dir è il mio cuore,
15
Questa è lingua di cui si vanta Amore.
Canzone1
Scoffing, amorous maidens and young men / mill about me, so, “Why write, / why do you write in a language unknown and strange / versifying of love, and how do you dare? / Speak, if your hope is never to be vain, [5] / and of your designs the best is to come to you”; / thus they go ridiculing me, “Other rivers, / other shores await you, and other seas, / on whose green banks / is bursting forth at any hour for your crown [10] / the immortal guerdon of eternal leaves. / Why on your shoulders the excessive burden?” /
Canzone, I will tell you, and you for me will reply. / My lady says, and her word is my heart, / “This is the language of which Love boasts.” [15]
(1630 ?)
* * *
1 a fully rhymed stanza repeated several times, followed by a shorter concluding stanza called the commiato; obviously, Milton has used the term loosely.
Sonnet 4
Diodati, e te’l dirò con maraviglia,
Quel ritroso io, eh’amor spreggiar soléa
E de’ suoi lacci spesso mi ridéa
Già caddi, ov’huom dabben talhor s’impiglia.
5
Nè treccie d’oro, nè guancia vermiglia
M’abbaglian sì, ma sotto nova idea
Pellegrina bellezza che’l cuor bea,
Portamenti alti honesti, e nelle ciglia
Quel sereno fulgor d’amabil nero,
10
Parole adorne di lingua più d’una,
E’l cantar che di mezzo l’hemispero
Traviar ben può la faticosa Luna,
E degli occhi suoi avventa sì gran fuoco
Che l’incerar gli orecchi mi fia poco.1
Sonnet 4
Diodati, and I will say it to you with wonder, / that stubborn I, who used to contemn love / and frequently scoffed at his snares, / now have fallen where upright man sometimes entangles himself. / No tresses of gold nor vermeil cheeks [5] / deceive me thus, but under a new-found fancy / foreign beauty which blesses my heart, / a look highly virtuous, and in her eyes / that tranquil brightness of amiable black, / speech adorned with more than one language, [10] / and the song that could well mislead the laboring moon / from its course in middle sky, / and from her eyes shoots such great fire / that enwaxing my ears would be little help to me.1
(1630 ?)
* * *
1 Milton thought of the Sirens’ singing to Ulysses, whose men’s ears were sealed to avoid enticement (Od., XII, 39–58).
Sonnet 5
Per certo i bei vostr’occhi, Donna mia,
Esser non può che non sian lo mio sole
Sì mi percuoton forte, come ei suole
Per l’arene di Libia chi s’invia,
5
Mentre un caldo vapor (nè senti’ pria)
Da quel lato si spinge ove mi duole,
Che forse amanti nelle lor parole
Chiaman sospir; io non so che si sia:
Parte rinchiusa, e turbida si cela
10
Scossomi il petto, e poi n’uscendo poco,
Quivi d’attorno o s’agghiaccia, o s’ingiela;
Ma quanto a gli occhi giunge a trovar loco
Tutte le notti a me suol far piovose
Finchè mia Alba rivien colma di rose.
Sonnet 5
In truth your fair eyes, my lady, / could not but be my sun; / they powerfully strike me as the sun him / who dispatches his way through the sands of Libya, / while a fervent steam (not felt before) [5] / from that side proceeds where is my grief, / that perhaps lovers in their words / call a sigh; I know not what it may be: / the hidden part, and turbid thus concealed, / has shaken my breast, and then a bit escaping, [10] / there from being enclosed has either frozen or congealed; / but as much as reaches my eyes to find its place / makes all the nights rainy to me alone / until my dawn returns overflowing with roses.
(1630 ?)
Sonnet 6
Giovane piano, e semplicetto amante
Poi che fuggir me stesso in dubbio sono,
Madonna, a voi del mio cuor l’humil dono
Farò divoto; io certo a prove tante
5
L’hebbi fedele, intrepido, costante,
Di pensieri leggiadro, accorto, e buono;
Quando rugge il gran mondo, e scocca il tuono,
S’arma di se, e d’intero diamante,
Tanto del forse, e d’invidia sicuro,
10
Di timori, e speranze al popol use,
Quanto d’ingegno, e d’alto valor vago,
E di cetra sonora, e delle muse:
Sol troverete in tal parte men duro
Ove Amor mise l’insanabil ago.
Sonnet 6
Young, gentle, and candid lover that I am, / since to fly my self I am in doubt, / my lady, to you the humble gift of my heart / I shall render devotedly; I, assured by many trials, / have found it faithful, courageous, constant, [5] / in thoughts gracious, prudent, and good; / when the wide world roars and the thunder strikes, / it arms itself from itself, and adamantly from within, / safe to such a degree from the chance and envy, / from the fears and hopes of common men [10] / as its store of indeterminate talent and high courage / and of the sounding lyre and the Muses: / only will you discover it in like portion less unyielding / where Love has sent his incurable dart.
(1630 ?)
On Shakespear1
What needs my Shakespear for his honour’d Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow’d reliques should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing2 Pyramid?
5
Dear son of memory,3 great heir of Fame,
What need’st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.4
For whilst to th’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,
10
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu’d5 Book
Those Delphick6 lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;7
15
And so Sepulcher’d in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.
(1630)
* * *
1 first printed in the Second Folio of Shakespeare’s plays (1632).
2 The archaic prefix was correctly used only for the past participle.
3 Aside from his constancy in our memories, Shakespeare is made a brother of the Muses, the daughters of Mnemosyne.
4 Compare “I have built me a monument more lasting than bronze, / A pyramid higher than a kingly tomb” (Horace, Odes, III, xxx, 1-2).
5 priceless.
6 inspired by Apollo, patron of poetry, whose abode was Delphi.
7 Shakespeare’s readers are an everlasting monument to his greatness with his lines engraved on their hearts.
&nb
sp; Naturam non pati senium1
Heu quàm perpetuis erroribus acta fatiscit
Avia mens hominum, tenebrisque immersa profundis
Œdipodioniam volvit sub pectore nocteml2
Quæ vesana suis metiri facta deorum
5
Audet, et incisas leges adamante perenni
Assimilare suis, nulloque solubile sæclo
Consilium fati perituris alligat horis.
Ergóne marcescet sulcantibus obsita rugis
Naturæ facies, et rerum publica mater3
10
Omniparum contracta uterum sterilescet ab ævo?
Et se fassa senem malè certis passibus ibit
Sidereum tremebunda caput? num tetra vetustas
Annorumque æterna fames, squalorque situsque
Sidera vexabunt? an et insatiabile Tempus
15
Esuriet Cælum, rapietque in viscera patrem?
Heu, potuitne suas imprudens Jupiter arces
Hoc contra munisse nefas, et Temporis isto
Exemisse malo, gyrosque dedisse perennes?
Ergo erit ut quandoque sono dilapsa tremendo
20
Convexi tabulata ruant, atque obvius ictu
Stridat uterque polus, superâque ut Olympius aulâ
Decidat, horribilisque retectâ Gorgone Pallas.4
Qualis in Ægæam proles Junonia5 Lemnon
Deturbata sacro cecidit de limine cæli.
25
Tu quoque, Phœbe, tui casus imitabere nati6
Præcipiti curru, subitáque ferere ruinâ
Pronus, et extinctâ fumabit lampade Nereus,7
Et dabit attonito feralia sibila ponto.
Tunc etiam aërei divulsis sedibus Hæmi8
30
Dissultabit apex, imoque allisa barathro
Terrebunt Stygium dejecta Ceraunia Ditem
In superos quibus usus erat, fraternaque bella.
At Pater omnipotens fundatis fortius astris
Consuluit rerum summæ, certoque peregit
35
Pondere fatorum lances, atque ordine summo
Singula perpetuum jussit servare tenorem.
Volvitur hinc lapsu mundi rota prima9 diurno;
Raptat et ambitos sociâ vertigine cælos.
Tardior haud solito Saturnus, et acer ut olim
40
Fulmineùm rutilat cristatâ casside Mavors.
Floridus æternùm Phœbus juvenile coruscat,
Nec fovet effœtas loca per declivia terras
Devexo temone Deus; sed semper amicá
Luce potens eadem currit per signa rotarum.
45
Surgit10 odoratis pariter formosus ab Indis
Æthereum pecus albenti qui cogit Olympo
Mane vocans, et serus agens in pascua cæli,
Temporis et gemino dispertit regna colore.
Fulget, obitque vices alterno Delia11 cornu,
50
Cæruleumque ignem paribus complectitur ulnis.
Nec variant elementa fidem, solitóque fragore
Lurida perculsas jaculantur fulmina rupes.
Nec per inane furit leviori murmure Corus,12
Stringit et armiferos æquali horrore Gelonos14
55
Trux Aquilo,13 spiratque hyemem, nimbosque volutat.
Utque solet, Siculi diverberat ima Pelori
Rex maris,15 et raucâ circumstrepit æquora conchâ
Oceani Tubicen,16 nec vastâ mole minorem
Ægæona17 ferunt dorso Balearica cete.
60
Sed neque, Terra, tibi sæcli vigor ille vetusti
Priscus abest, servatque suum Narcissus18 odorem;
Et puer ille suum tenet et puer ille decorem,
Phœbe tuusque et Cypri tuus,19 nec ditior olim
Terra datum sceleri celavit montibus aurum
65
Conscia, vel sub aquis gemmas. Sic denique in ævum
Ibit cunctarum series justissima rerum,
Donec flamma orbem populabitur ultima, latè
Circumplexa polos, et vasti culmina cæli;
Ingentique rogo flagrabit machina mundi.20
Nature does not suffer decay1
Alas how the wandering mind of man grows weak, driven / by persistent errors, and immersed in profound darkness / it breathes Oedipean night beneath his breast!2 / Unsound it dares measure the deeds of the gods / by its own, and to laws engraved on eternal adamant [5] / compare its own, and the forever immutable / plan of fate it binds to the passing hours. /
Therefore shall the face of Nature wither, covered over with the wrinkles / of ploughings, and the common mother of things,3 / contracted of her all-bearing womb, become sterile from old age? [10] / And herself acknowledged old, shall she move with erroneously / certain steps, her starry head trembling? Shall foul old age / and the endless greed of years, and squalor and mold / plague the heavens? Or shall insatiable time / devour heaven and ravage his father’s very organs? [15] / Alas, could not unforeseeing Jupiter fortify / his citadels against this execration, and banish / such an evil of time, and yield eternal circuits? / Therefore it shall come to pass that at some time, collapsing with / a tremendous noise, the vaulted floors of heaven will crash down and even [20] / each exposed pole will rattle with the collision, and Olympian Jove / will fall from his celestial court, and fearful Athena with her Gorgon / shield revealed,4 as for example the child of Juno5 on Aegean Lemnos / fell, cast from the sacred threshold of heaven. / You also, Phoebus, shall copy the misfortune of your son6 [25] / in your headlong chariot, and shall be carried in sudden ruin / downward, and Nereus7 shall steam at your extinguished light / and issue funereal hisses from the astonished deep. / Then furthermore the destruction of the foundations of Haemus8 / will burst from its summit asunder, and indeed, dashed to the lowest depths, [30] / the Ceraunian mountains, which he had used against the upper regions / in fraternal wars, cast down, will terrify Stygian Dis. /
But the omnipotent Father, with the stars fixed more steadfastly, / has taken care of the greatest of things, and with certainty / has transfixed in balance the scales of the fates, and even [35] / commanded each individual thing in the great order to preserve / its uninterrupted course perpetually. / Therefore the Prime Wheel9 of the world turns in its daily flight / and hastens with kindred whirling motion the encircled heavens. / Saturn, as is his wont, is by no means impeded, and as violent as formerly, / Mars flashes red lightning from his crested helmet. [40] / Bright Phoebus gleams forever youthful, / nor does the God warm the exhausted lands throughout the sloping regions / with his down-slanting chariot; but always strong in his friendly / light he runs onward the same through the signs of the spheres. / He10 rises equally beautiful from the fragrant Indies, [45] / who drives at dawn the heavenly flock from the sky, / calling the morning, and driving them at evening into the pastures of heaven, / and who divides the kingdoms of time with its twin hues. / Delia11 waxes and wanes by turns with alternating horn, / and she embraces the blue flame which is the sky with constant arms. [50] / Nor do the elements vary in faithfulness, and with accustomed crash / the lurid lightning-bolts strike the shattered rocks. / Nor through the void does Corus12 rage with milder roar, / and harsh Aquilo13 draws the armed Gelonians14 together / with similar chill, and breathes winter, and blows the clouds along. [55] / And even the king of the sea,15 as is his custom, cleaves the depths / of Sicilian Peloros, and the trumpeter16 of Oceanus / clamors his grating conch through the level sea, / nor an Aegaeon17 of less vast bulk / do the Balearic whales carry on their back. / On the contrary, Earth, the ancient vigor of that former age [60] / is not removed from you; and Narcissus18 retains his fragrance; / that youth still possesses his beauty, and that lad / of yours, Apollo, and yours too, Cypris,19 nor in former times / did knowing Earth more abundantly conceal the golden gift of mountains, / which leads to crime, not even the gems beneath the seas. Thus, in short, [65] / into eternity the most just sequence of all things shall proceed, / until the f
inal flame shall devastate the world, far and wide / encompassing the poles and the summits of the deserted sky; / and the frame of the universe shall burn up in a vast funeral pyre.20
(June 1631 ?)
* * *
1 That nature does not decay was the philosophic conclusion of both George Hakewell in An Apologie or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World (1627) and other “optimists,” as Tillyard calls them (Elizabethan World Picture, N.Y., 1944, p. 33). Fink (Classical Republicans, pp. 91-122) sees evidence that Milton came to accept the theory of deterioration by 1642, but Joseph A. Bryant, Jr. (SAMLA Studies in Milton, pp. 1-19), argues that he maintained the position taken here without even occasional misgiving. Though commonplace, the concept is due to Milton’s faith in God: since these things come from God, providence is immutable, matter incorruptible, and nature undegenerate. Hanford, in “Youth of Milton,” p. 17, calls this early position “significant in its consistency both with his humanistic inheritance and with his later attitude in theology, politics, and education.”
The poem has frequently been identified as the verses which were “ghostwritten” for a Fellow of the college and alluded to as printed in a letter to Alexander Gill, dated July 2, 1628.
2 Man, like Sophocles’ Oedipus, is blind of his own doing; he presumes against God and his laws by seeing them in relation to his own imperfect concepts.
3 Earth.
4 Perseus beheaded the Gorgon Medusa, who turned all who looked upon her to stone. Pallas Athena placed the head in her shield as a protective figure.
5 Vulcan.