by John Milton
The dances ended, the Spirit Epiloguizes.
Spirit. To the Ocean now I fly,
And those happy climes that lie
Where day never shuts his eye,
Up in the broad feilds of the sky:
980
There I suck the liquid air
All amidst the gardens fair
Of Hesperus and his daughters three
That sing about the golden tree:98
Along the crisped94 shades and bowrs
985
Revels the spruce and jocond Spring,
The Graces, and the rosie-boosom’d Howrs,95
Thither all thir bounties bring,
That there eternal Summer dwells,
And west winds, with musky wing
990
About the cedarn alleys fling
Nard, and Cassia’s balmy smells.
Iris there with humid bow96
Waters the odorous banks that blow
Flowers of more mingled hew
995
Then her purfl’d97 scarf can shew,
And drenches with Elysian dew
(List mortals, if your ears be true)
Beds of hyacinth and roses
Where young Adonis oft reposes,
1000
Waxing well of his deep wound
In slumber soft, and on the ground
Sadly sits th’ Assyrian Queen;98
But farr above in spangled sheen
Celestial Cupid her fam’d Son advanc’t
1005
Holds his dear Psyche99 sweet intranc’t
After her wandring labours long,
Till free consent the gods among
Make her his eternal bride,
And from her fair unspotted side
1010
Two blissful twins are to be born,
Youth and Joy; so Jove hath sworn.
But now my task is smoothly don,
I can fly, or I can run
Quickly to the green earths end,
1015
Where the bow’d welkin slow doth bend,
And from thence can soar as soon
To the corners100 of the Moon.
Mortals that would follow me,
Love vertue, she alone is free,
1020
She can teach ye how to clime
Higher then the spheary chime;101
Or if Vertue feeble were,
Heav’n it self would stoop to her.
(1634, before Sept. 29; revised, autumn–winter 1637)
* * *
1 Written originally in celebration of the Earl of Bridgewater’s election as Lord President of Wales, A Mask was presented on Sept. 29, 1634, at Ludlow Castle, with his three children enacting the Lady and her brothers. Thyrsis was played by Henry Lawes, music tutor to the Bridgewater family and composer of the music for the masque. As a masque, the work employs songs, dances, ideal and unreal characters and powers; but its length and dramatic action create a play unlike most other masques. Its more usual name of “Comus” is the result of its popularity in the eighteenth century as a play with music by Thomas Arne, into which frequently were interpolated passages from L’Allegro. But this title gives a false impression, for Milton’s emphasis is not on evil but on the positive virtue of Temperance, on the dynamic purity of Chastity, as Woodhouse and others have argued. Basically the masque is a temptation in a wilderness involving Comus’ proffer of drink, his admonition that the earth’s riches and beauty must not be hoarded, and his immobilizing the Lady in alabaster, which nonetheless cannot immanacle her mind “while Heav’n sees good.” What overcomes Comus’ glozing wrords is Virtue, which “may be assail’d but never hurt.”
2 John xiv. 2: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”
3 1 Cor. ix. 25: “And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible”; and Rev. ii. 10: “be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”
4 immortal garments.
5 Pluto.
6 Wales, whose Lord President was the Earl of Bridgewater; the celebration of his “new-entrusted Scepter” awaits the arrival of his children through “this drear wood”—the story background for the masque.
7 great.
8 Bacchus, carried off by pirates, changed them into dolphins.
9 Aeaea where the enchantress transformed Ulysses’ men to swine.
10 French and Spanish lands, known for their wine.
11 lynx.
12 material of a rainbow, “the bow in the cloud” of Noah (Gen. ix. 11-17).
13 Milton praises Lawes (the “swain” of l. 84) by comparison with Orpheus.
14 The evening star, Hesperus, rising, is a sign to gather sheep into their fold for the night.
15 cool.
16 those creating the music of the spheres.
17 a rustic dance.
18 night revels.
19 a Thracian goddess of nightly pleasure.
20 goddess of the moon (her team was three dragons, l. 131) and of witchcraft.
21 tricks.
22 flattering.
23 here the god of shepherds.
24 a serious religious devotee whose dress shows that he has kept his vow of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
25 one with a slide by which the light can be concealed. Since Fawkes had used one in the Gunpowder Plot, the image had become nefarious.
26 a winding river.
27 The Lady likens her brothers to a beautiful youth beloved by Echo.
28 musical cadence.
29 rocks lying opposite the whirlpool Charybdis, which Ulysses had to pass, personified as a woman with six heads that barked like dogs.
30 wearied.
31 pleated.
32 stream lined with bushes.
33 a reed made into a candle by dipping in tallow.
34 the Great Bear and the pole star of the Lesser Bear, by which, respectively, Greek and Phoenician sailors set their course.
35 over-precise.
36 probably a prefix meaning “very.”
37 the earth.
38 likes.
39 unenchantable.
40 The golden apples of the tree had been given to Hera (queen of the gods) by Gaia (goddess of the earth) upon her marriage to Jove (God). See ll. 981-93 and n.
41 does not matter to me.
42 unaccompanied.
43 like Diana, goddess of the hunt and of chastity.
44 panther.
45 See El. 4, n. 21.
46 becomes sensual and brutish.
47 led helplessly astray by night.
48 nearer.
49 swords.
50 rushing forward in confusion.
51 center.
52 removing the look of reason in one’s face.
53 unaware.
54 pensiveness, which here leads to Thyrsis’ playing his pipe until his imagination has vented his thoughts.
55 completion of the music.
56 outrun (their meeting).
57 sentenoe.
58 bugbears, bogies.
59 prey.
60 enterprise.
61 health-giving.
62 medicinal plants.
63 shoes heavy with nails.
64 to ward off Circe’s charms.
65 snares.
66 They were conceived as lying beneath volcanoes.
67 The attendant spirit as Thyrsis is doing just that.
68 See El. 5, n. 3.
69 an opiate. Reference is Od., IV, 221.
70 lustful.
71 a fur used on scholars’ gowns; hence, solemn, austere.
72 Diogenes renounced luxury by living in a tub.
73 closed up.
74 a shaggy woolen fabric.
75 the earth.
76 deluded.
77 pale color.
78 comb.
79 pick and choose.
80 The wo
rd combines a meaning of something beyond Comus’ comprehension and a religious article of faith known only to the initiated.
81 fencing, i.e., debating.
82 that is, when Jove dooms to hell those who during his rebellion followed his father Saturn.
83 Spenser; see FQ, II, x, 19.
84 Milton altered Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of the murder of Estrildis and her illegitimate daughter Sabrina by Locrine’s jealous wife Gwendolen.
85 a sea-god.
86 a flower yielding immortality.
87 The sea deities include Tethys, wife of Oceanus and mother of rivers; Proteus, who lived in the Carpathian Sea and was known for changing his appearance; Triton, Neptune’s herald; Glaucus, an immortal fisherman; Leucothea (or Ino) who escaped her husband’s insanity with her son Melicertes by throwing herself into the sea; Thetis, a Nereid; and the Sirens Parthenope and Ligea.
88 turquoise.
89 the wife of Neptune.
90 Compare “the towred Cybele” (Arcades, 21, and n. 6).
91 Besides having wings on his sandals, indicating his swiftness, Mercury invented the lyre.
92 early.
93 The Hesperian tree with its golden apples, guarded by a dragon, symbolized the Tree of Life, whose fruit yielded immortality; the dragon, here and in ll. 393-97, is identified with the cherubic watch with flaming swords placed there by God (PL XI, 118-25).
94 quivering.
95 goddesses of the seasons.
96 See n. 12; in the following lines the water imagery indicates eternal life in contrast with Noah’s flood of death.
97 embroidered along the edge.
98 Venus, whose lover Adonis had been gored by a wild boar.
99 The myth points to Milton’s allegory: life and heavenly bliss are the offspring of the legitimate union of heart and soul. The mere appetite of Venus’ love causes Adonis to languish and her to sit sadly far below the celestial heavens.
100 horns.
101 the music of the spheres.
Psalm 114
Psalm 114
When the children of Israel, when the noble tribes of Jacob / left behind the land of Egypt, hated, barbarous of speech, / already at that time the only chosen race was the sons of Judah. / But among the people God ruled, a mighty Lord. / The sea saw, and turning back, made the fugitive strong, [5] / its roaring waves folded beneath, and straightaway was / the sacred Jordan thrust back upon its silvery sources. / The boundless mountains rushed wildly thither, skipping / as well-filled rams in a thriving garden. / At the same time all the strange little crags leaped up [10] / as lambs to the shepherd’s pipe about their dear mother. / Why then, dread monster sea, did you make the fugitive strong, / your roaring waves folded beneath? Why then were you, / sacred Jordan, thrust back upon your silvery sources? / Why did the boundless mountains rush wildly, skipping [15] / as well-filled rams in a thriving garden? / Why then did you, strange little crags, leap up / as lambs to the shepherd’s pipe about your dear mother? / Tremble, Earth, and fear the Lord, doer of mighty works; / Earth, fear the Lord, the highest majesty of the seed of Isaac, [20] / who poured forth both the roaring streams out of the rocks / and the ever-flowing fountain down from the weeping crags.
(Nov. 1634)
Philosophus ad regem quendam qui eum ignotum insontem inter reos forte captum inscius damnaverat hæc subito misit.1
A philosopher on his way to his death suddenly sent this message to a certain king who had unawares condemned him, unrecognized and innocent, when he was seized by chance among criminals.1
O king, if you make an end of me, a lawful person / and a doer of utterly no harm to man, you easily take away / one of the wisest of heads, but later you will perceive / just as before; surely at last, you will grieve vainly and exceedingly / because you have destroyed such a greatly renowned bulwark from out of the city. [5]
(Dec. 1634 ?)
* * *
1 Though these verses sound like a paraphrase of a classic epigram, no source has been determined. If they are the result of encouragement from Alexander Gill to try further Greek composition, the subject may have been chosen, as Parker suggests (“Notes,” p. 129), to “allude to Gill’s unfortunate clash with Laud and the Star Chamber, and his subsequent pardon by King Charles (November 30, 1630).…” Two years before, Gill had toasted the health of John Felton, assassin of the king’s minister, the Duke of Buckingham.
On Time
Fly envious Time,1 till thou run out thy race,
Call on the lazy leaden-stepping howrs,
Whose speed is but the heavy plummets2 pace;
And glut thy self with what thy womb devours,
5
Which is no more then what is false and vain,
And meerly mortal dross;
So little is our loss,
So little is thy gain.
For when as each thing bad thou hast entomb’d,
10
And last of all thy greedy self consum’d,
Then long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With an individual3 kiss;
And Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When every thing that is sincerely good
15
And perfectly divine,
With Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine
About the supreme Throne
Of him t’ whose happy-making sight alone,
When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall clime,
20
Then all this Earthy grosnes quit,
Attir’d with Stars, we shall for ever sit,
Triumphing over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.
(1633-37 ?)
* * *
1 Cronos was jealous of even his own children (Hesiod, Theogony, 453 ff.).
2 the weight which by gravity moved the wheels of the clock and in turn its hands. The poem originally was to be “set on a clock case.”
3 usually interpreted as “undividable,” that is, “everlasting”; however, O. B. Hardison, Jr. (Texas Studies in Lit. and Lang., III, 1961, 107-22) argues cogently for the simpler reading: “Eternity shall greet us individually with a kiss.”
Upon the Circumcision1
Ye flaming Powers,2 and winged Warriours bright
That erst with musick, and triumphant song
First heard by happy watchfull Shepherds ear,
So sweetly sung your joy the clouds along
5
Through the soft silence of the list’ning night,
Now mourn, and if sad share with us to bear
Your fiery essence can distill no tear,3
Burn in your sighs, and borrow
Seas wept from our deep sorrow.
10
He who with all Heav’ns heraldry whilere
Enter’d the world, now bleeds to give us ease;
Alas, how soon our sin
Sore doth begin
His infancy to seasel
15
O more exceeding love or law more just?4
Just law indeed, but more exceeding love!
For we by rightfull doom remediles
Were lost in death till he that dwelt above
High-thron’d in secret bliss, for us frail dust
20
Emptied his glory,5 ev’n to nakednes;
And that great Cov’nant6 which we still transgress
Intirely satisfi’d,
And the full wrath beside
Of vengefull Justice bore for our excess,
25
And seals obedience first with wounding smart
This day, but O ere long
Huge pangs and strong
Will peirce more neer his heart.
(1633–37 ?)
* * *
1 This poem of two fourteen-line verses, with single original lines 13-14 and 27-28, “reproduces as closely as possible the stanza used by Petrarch in his canzone to the Blessed Virgin” (Prince, p. 61). The Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, eight days
after birth in accord with Mosaic law, is Jan. 1.
2 The Powers were sixth in the celestial hierarchy, and the “winged Warriours” are the “helmed Cherubim” and “sworded Seraphim” of the Nativity Ode, 112-13; but Milton uses the terms to represent all the angels whose song Luke (ii. 13-14) quotes.
3 Besides the conceit of opposites, the line refers to the opinion that angels were incapable of performing such bodily functions.
4 This second stanza is an early statement of the high justice of God the Father and the mercy of the Son, who became man for man’s salvation (see PL III, 80–344; XII, 393-419).
5 Christ’s kenosis; see Phil. ii. 6-8.
6 that everlasting covenant made with Abraham when the rite of circumcision was instituted (Gen. xvii. 7, 10); it implies obedience to God’s will.
At a solemn Musick
Blest pair of Sirens, pledges of Heav’ns joy,
Sphear-born, harmonious sisters, Voice, and Vers,1
Wed your divine sounds, and mixt power employ
Dead things with inbreath’d sense able to peirce
5
And to our high-rais’d phantasie present
That undisturbed Song of pure concent2
Ay sung before the saphire-colour’d throne
To him that sits theron
With saintly shout, and solemn Jubily,
10
Where the bright Seraphim in burning row
Thir loud up-lifted Angel trumpets blow,
And the Cherubick hoast in thousand quires
Touch thir immortal harps of golden wires
With those just Spirits that wear victorious Palms,
15
Hymns devout and holy Psalms
Singing everlastingly;
That we on Earth with undiscording voice
May rightly answer that melodious noise
As once we did, till disproportion’d sin
20
Jarr’d against natures chime, and with harsh din