About the Author:
John Milton (1608-74), the great English poet, is best known for his epic masterpiece, Paradise Lost. In addition to writing brilliant verse and overtly political works, Milton was also a private tutor and, during the Commonwealth period, served as Secretary for Foreign Tongues, a position mostly involving the composition of the English Republic’s foreign correspondence in Latin.
About the Editors
William Kerrigan is the author of many books, including The Sacred Complex: On the Psychogenesis of Paradise Lost, for which he won the James Holly Hanford Award of the Milton Society of America. A former president of the Milton Society, he has also earned numerous honors and distinctions from that group, including its award for lifetime achievement. He is professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts.
John Rumrich is the author of Matter of Glory: A New Preface to Paradise Lost and Milton Unbound: Controversy and Reinterpretation. An award-winning editor and writer, he is Thaman Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches early modern British literature.
Stephen M. Fallon is the author of Milton’s Peculiar Grace: Self-Representation and Authority and Milton Among the Philosophers: Poetry and Materialism in Seventeenth-Century England, winner of the Milton Society’s Hanford Award. He is professor of liberal studies and English at the University of Notre Dame.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
English Poems
“He had auburn hair. His complexion exceeding fair—he was so fair that they called him the Lady of Christ’s College” (see Aubrey, p. xxvii). psalm 114
The 1645 Poems informed its readers that “this and the following Psalm were done by the author at fifteen years old.” They could well have been school exercises, as is usually assumed, but Milton’s father’s combination of faith and musical skill expressed itself in a keen appreciation for the Psalter. Milton Sr. in fact contributed six settings to Thomas Ravenscroft’s The Whole Book of Psalms (1621). These translations are his son’s earliest surviving English compositions.
sG4
When the blest seed of Terah’s faithful son,
After long toil their liberty had won,
And passed from Pharian fields to Canaan land,
Led by the strength of the Almighty’s hand,
5Jehovah’s wonders were in Israel shown,
His praise and glory was in Israel known.
That saw the troubled sea, and shivering fled,
And sought to hide his froth-becurlèd head
Low in the earth; Jordan’s clear streams recoil,
10As a faint host that hath received the foil.
The high, huge-bellied mountains skip like rams
Amongst their ewes, the little hills like lambs.
Why fled the ocean? And why skipped the mountains?
Why turnèd Jordan toward his crystal fountains?
15Shake earth, and at the presence be aghast
Of him that ever was, and ay shall last,
That glassy floods from rugged rocks can crush,
And make soft rills from fiery flint-stones gush.
1. faithful son: Abraham.
3. Pharian: Egyptian.
10. foil: defeat.
psalm 136
Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord, for he is kind,
For his mercies ay endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure.
5Let us blaze his name abroad,
For of gods he is the God;
For, &c.
O let us his praises tell,
10Who doth the wrathful tyrants quell.
For, &c.
Who with his miracles doth make
Amazèd heav’n and earth to shake.
15For, &c.
Who by his wisdom did create
The painted heav’ns so full of state.
For, &c.
20
Who did the solid earth ordain
To rise above the wat’ry plain.
For, &c.
25Who by his all-commanding might,
Did fill the new-made world with light.
For, &c.
And caused the golden-tressèd sun,
30All the day long his course to run.
For, &c.
The hornèd moon to shine by night,
Amongst her spangled sisters bright.
35For, &c.
10. Who: 1673. 1645 has that here and in lines 13, 17, 21, and 25. In each case we follow 1673. He with his thunder-clasping hand,
Smote the first-born of Egypt land.
For, &c.
40
And in despite of Pharaoh fell,
He brought from thence his Israel.
For, &c.
45The ruddy waves he cleft in twain,
Of the Erythraean main.
For, &c.
The floods stood still like walls of glass,
50While the Hebrew bands did pass.
For, &c.
But full soon they did devour
The tawny king with all his power.
55For, &c.
His chosen people he did bless
In the wasteful wilderness.
For, &c.
60
In bloody battle he brought down
Kings of prowess and renown.
For, &c.
65He foiled bold Seon and his host,
That ruled the Amorean coast.
For, &c.
And large-limbed Og he did subdue,
70With all his over-hardy crew.
For, &c.
And to his servant Israel
He gave their land therein to dwell.
75For, &c.
46. Erythraean: adjective from the Greek for “red,” applied by Herodotus 1.180; 2.8, 158 to the Red Sea.
65. Seon: Sihon, King of the Amorites (Num. 21.21–32).
66. Amorean: Amorite.
69. Og: giant King of Bashan, slain by Moses (Num. 21.33–35).
73. his servant Israel: Jacob.
He hath with a piteous eye
Beheld us in our misery.
For, &c.
80
And freed us from the slavery
Of the invading enemy.
For, &c.
85All living creatures he doth feed,
And with full hand supplies their need.
For, &c.
Let us therefore warble forth
90His mighty majesty and worth.
For, &c.
That his mansion hath on high
Above the reach of mortal eye.
95For his mercies ay endure,
Ever faithful, ever sure.
on the death of a fair infant dying of a cough
This work belongs to a group of English lyrics that first appeared in the 1673 Poems. Based on the testimony of Milton’s nephew Edward Phillips (Darbishire 1932, 62), the subject of the poem has generally been thought to have been Anne Phillips (b. January 1626 and d. January 1628), Milton’s niece, and the mother addressed in the last stanza his sister Anne Phillips. Carey argues against these identifications, primarily on the grounds that Milton was nineteen and could not have written the elegy, as he claims to have, Anno aetatis 17 (at the age of seventeen). The alternative is that Milton, whether unconsciously or not, backdated the poem (LeComte 7–8). Others of Carey’s arguments seem tendentious. He takes “Summer’s chief honor if thou hadst outlasted/Bleak Winter’s force that made thy blossom dry” to assert that the child did not outlive a single winter (and therefore could not have been little Anne Phillips, who lived two years), whereas in fact the lines declare that the child did not outlive the winter in which she contracted the cough “that made thy blossom dry,” and are therefore consistent with the Anne Phillips hypothesis.
In Stanza 5 the poem erupts with questions that always haunt tragic deaths. Why did God permit this infant to die? “Could Heav’n for pity thee so strictly doom?” These painful questions open up the large subject of theodicy, the justification of God’s ways to men, that will occupy the argumentative center of Paradise Lost. In this early lyric, perhaps his first original poem in English, Milton tries to lay doubts to rest by finding a providential scheme within which the infant’s death can be seen as a divine attempt to bring Earth and Heaven closer together or improve the lot of mankind.
The poem ends with a prophecy that we take literally: “This if thou do he will an offspring give,/That till the world’s last end shall make thy name to live.” Hoping to make “offspring” metaphorical, modern editors often cite God’s promise to the eunuchs in Isaiah 56.5: “Even unto them will I give . . . a name better than of sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.” So Milton’s “offspring” becomes salvation and eternal bliss, matters that render trivial all parental concern with earthly offspring. But Milton does not say that the fame of the offspring is eternal. Quite the opposite, he says that it will last until the end of the world. Recourse to Isaiah in interpreting “Fair Infant” probably does not occur before 1921 (Hughes et al. 2:135). Proponents clearly hope that the biblical passage can fend off the apparent sense of Milton’s lines, which in turn is thought to suppose a Milton so fame-crazed that he would console a patient sister with the promise of another child with a glorious future. But that is precisely what he has done. Milton’s sister was indeed pregnant at the time of the fair infant’s death, and she gave birth to Elizabeth Phillips in April 1628.
sG4
anno aetatis 17
i
O fairest flower no sooner blown but blasted,
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,
Summer’s chief honor if thou hadst outlasted
Bleak Winter’s force that made thy blossom dry;
5For he being amorous on that lovely dye
That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss
But killed alas, and then bewailed his fatal bliss.
1–2. O fairest . . . fading: The opening echoes The Passionate Pilgrim 10.1–2: “Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely plucked, soon faded,/Plucked in the bud and faded in the spring!” This work was ascribed to Shakespeare in 1599 and 1640, but we now believe that Shakespeare wrote only five of its twenty sonnets. The author of the one echoed by Milton is unknown.
1. blown: bloomed.
2. timelessly: unseasonably, not in due time.
3. chief honor: that for which Summer would be honored.
5. amorous on: in love with.
6. envermeil: tinge with vermilion.
6–7. thought to kiss/But killed: Shakespeare also conjoins kiss and kill in VEN 1110 and OTH 5.2.356–57.
ii
For since grim Aquilo his charioteer
By boist’rous rape th’ Athenian damsel got,
10He thought it touched his deity full near,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away th’ infamous blot
Of long-uncoupled bed, and childless eld,
Which ’mongst the wanton gods a foul reproach was held.
iii
15So mounting up in icy-pearlèd car,
Through middle empire of the freezing air
He wandered long, till thee he spied from far;
There ended was his quest, there ceased his care.
Down he descended from his snow-soft chair,
20But all unwares with his cold-kind embrace
Unhoused thy virgin soul from her fair biding place.
iv
Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;
For so Apollo, with unweeting hand
Whilom did slay his dearly-lovèd mate,
25Young Hyacinth born on Eurotas’ strand,
Young Hyacinth the pride of Spartan land;
But then transformed him to a purple flower:
Alack that so to change thee Winter had no power.
8–9. In Ovid, Boreas, the north wind, also called Aquilo, snatches away Orithyia, daughter of the king of Athens (Met. 6.682–710). Milton makes Aquilo into Winter’s charioteer, and his boist’rous rape into the incitement of Winter’s lust.
13. eld: old age.
15. icy-pearlèd car: chariot decorated with hailstones.
16. middle empire: the middle of the three traditional regions of air.
19. snow-soft chair: another description of the chariot of line 15, now seemingly cushioned with snow.
20. cold-kind embrace: an embrace kind in its intention but chilling in its consequences.
23–27. Apollo accidentally killed his beloved Hyacinthus with a discus and made a brightly colored (purpureus) flower spring from his blood (Ovid, Met. 10.162–216). At least one commentator (Servius; see Allen 49) blamed Boreas (Aquilo) for the accident.
23. unweeting: a variant of unwitting.
25. born . . . strand: Hyacinthus was born in Sparta, which is situtated on the river Eurotas.
v
Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead
30Or that thy corse corrupts in earth’s dark womb,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,
Hid from the world in a low delvèd tomb;
Could Heav’n for pity thee so strictly doom?
O no! For something in thy face did shine
35Above mortality that showed thou wast divine.
vi
Resolve me then O soul most surely blest
(If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear),
Tell me bright spirit where’er thou hoverest,
Whether above that high first-moving sphere
40Or in the Elysian fields (if such there were).
O say me true if thou wert mortal wight,
And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy flight.
vii
Wert thou some star which from the ruined roof
Of shaked Olympus by mischance didst fall;
45Which careful Jove in nature’s true behoof
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late Earth’s sons besiege the wall
Of sheeny Heav’n, and thou some goddess fled
Amongst us here below to hide thy nectared head?
36. Resolve me: Answer my questions, solve my problems (OED 3.11b).
39. first-moving sphere: the primum mobile, the outermost sphere of the Ptolemaic universe.
40. Elysian fields: home of the blessed dead in Homer (Od. 4.561–69) and Plato (Phaedo 112E).
45. behoof: benefit.
47. Earth’s sons: the Giants, who warred against the gods (Hesiod, Theog. 183–85).
viii
50Or wert thou that just maid who once before
Forsook the hated earth, O tell me sooth,
And cam’st again to visit us once more?
Or wert thou that sweet smiling youth?
Or that crowned matron, sage white-robèd Truth?
55Or any other of that Heav’nly brood
Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some good?
ix
Or wert thou of the golden-wingèd host,
Who having clad thyself in human weed,
To earth from thy prefixèd seat didst post,
60And after short abode fly back with speed,
As if to show what creatures Heav’n doth breed,
Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire
To scorn the sordid world, and unto Heav’n aspire?
x
But O why didst thou not stay here below
65To bless us with thy Heav’n-loved innocence,
To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe,
To turn swift-rushing black perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering pestilence,
To stand ’twixt us and our deservèd smart?
70But thou canst best perform that office where thou art.
50. that just maid: Astraea, goddess of Justice, who fled the earth when corruption followed the golden age. See Nat Ode 141–46.
53. Something apparently dropped out of this line when the poem was first printed, in 1673. It is missing a metrical foot, and the youth lacks his allegorical identity. Words such as Mercy and Virtue have been inserted between thou and that, which saves the meter; but these allegorical figures are never male, and youth in Milton always refers to a male.
54. white-robèd Truth: See Cesare Ripa, Iconologia 530.
57. golden-wingèd host: the angels.
59. prefixèd: preordained.
66. his: God’s.
68. pestilence: There was a major outbreak of plague in 1625–26. Milton could be assuming that the birth of Anne Phillips did drive away that plague. She will be an even more effective advocate in Heaven.
xi
Then thou the mother of so sweet a child
Her false imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild;
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
75And render him with patience what he lent;
This if thou do he will an offspring give,
That till the world’s last end shall make thy name to live.
71. Then thou: The address has shifted from the dead child to its mother.
75. render: give back; lent: The idea that life is lent to us by God and in the end must be paid back was commonplace (see Jonson, “On My First Son” 3–5, “On My First Daughter” 2–4).
76–77. See headnote.
at a vacation exercise
At some point during the summer vacation months (July through October) of 1628, Milton presided over festive exercises at Christ’s College. In keeping with the traditions behind such saturnalian occasions, he first of all delivered the two raucous Latin orations that constitute Prolusion 6. The speeches were peppered with boisterous jokes about gender, sex, farts, and the like. Then the master of ceremonies broke into these pentameter English ...
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