The Complete Poetry of John Milton (13 page)

TO THOMAS YOUNG, HIS TUTOR, DISCHARGING THE DUTY OF PASTOR AMONG THE ENGLISH MERCHANTS IN BUSINESS IN HAMBURG
¹

Quickly, my letter, run through the boundless deep; / go, seek Teutonic lands through the smooth sea; / break off dilatory delays, and let nothing, I pray, thwart your voyage, / and let nothing obstruct the path of your hastening. / I myself Aeolus
²
bridling the winds in his Sicanian cave [5] / will exhort, and the vigorous gods, / and cerulian Doris, attended by her nymphs,
³
/ to give you a peaceful journey through their realms. / But you, if you are able, arrogate for yourself the swift team, / borne by which the Colchian
⁴
fled from the face of her husband, [10] / or that by which Triptolemus
⁵
reached the Scythian borders, / the beloved boy sent from the Eleusinian city. / But when you see the German sands become golden, / turn your steps to the walls of affluent Hamburg, /
which is said to derive its name from slain Hama,
⁶
[15] / who it is told was brought to violent death by a Cimbrian club. / Here, renowned for his honor of the primitive faith, lives / a minister well-versed in feeding the sheep that worship Christ; / he, truly, is more than the other half of my soul: / I am constrained to live but half of my life without him. [20] / Alas for me, how many seas, how many mountains intervening / render me cut off from the other half of myself! / Dearer to me is he than you, most learned of Greeks, / to Cliniades,
⁷
who was the great-grandson of Telamon; / than the lofty Stagirite
⁸
to his noble pupil [25] / whom the genial daughter of Chaonia bore to Libyan Jove. / What the son of Amyntor, what the heroic son of Philyra / were to the king of the Myrmidons,
⁹
such is he to me. / I first surveyed the Aonian retreats through his guiding, / and the sacred lawns of the twin-peaked mountain,
¹⁰
[30] / and the Pierian water I drank, and by favor of Clio, / I thrice moistened my happy lips with pure Castalian wine. / But thrice has fiery Aethon seen the sign of the ram, / and overspread his woolly back with new gold, / and twice, Chloris, have you bestrewn the old earth with new [35] / grass, and twice Auster removed your wealth; / and yet I have not been allowed to feast my eyes on his countenance / or the sweet sounds of his speech to be drunk in by my ears.
¹¹
/ Speed, therefore, and outrun noisy Eurus
¹²
by your course. / How great is the need of my admonitions, circumstance shows; you yourself perceive.
[40] / Perhaps you will find him sitting with his sweet wife, / stroking their dear children on his lap; / or perhaps meditating the copious volumes of the old fathers, / or the Holy Bible of the true God, / saturating the delicate souls with celestial dew, [45] / the sublime work of health-bearing religion. / As is the custom, be careful to deliver a hearty greeting, / to speak as would befit your master, if only he were present. / May you be mindful to cast your discreet eyes down a little on the ground / and to speak these words with modest mouth: [50] / These verses to you, if there is time for the delicate Muses between battles,
¹³
/ a devoted hand sends from the English shore. / Accept this sincere wish for your welfare, though it be late, / and may it be the more pleasing to you for that reason. / Late indeed, but genuine it was as that which [55] / the chaste Penelope, daughter of Icarius, received from her dilatory husband.
¹⁴
/ But why did I consent to cancel a manifest fault / which he himself is utterly unable to discharge? / He is justly reproved as tardy, and confesses his offence, / and is ashamed to have forsaken his duty. [60] / Do only you grant forgiveness to him confessed, and to him begging forgiveness; / crimes which lie exposed are wont to be destroyed. / No beast separates its jaws in fearful openings, / nor does the lion tear those lying prone with his wounding claw. / Often the cruel hearts of Thracian
¹⁵
lance-bearers [65] / have melted at the melancholy pleas of a suppliant, / and extended hands avert the stroke of the thunderbolt, / and a small sacrifice pacifies the angry gods. / Now for a long while was there the impulse to write to you in that place, / and love would not endure to suffer further delays; [70] / for wandering rumor imparts—alas the truthful messager of calamities— / that in places neighboring upon you wars burst forth, / that you and your city are surrounded by fierce troops, / and that now the Saxon leaders have procured arms. / Everywhere around you Enyo is devastating the fields, [75] / and now blood soaks the land sown with the flesh of men. / And Thrace has yielded its Mars to the Germans; / father Mars has driven his Odrysian horses thither. / And now the ever-crested olive fades, /
and the goddess
¹⁶
detesting the brazen-sounding trumpet has fled, [80] / look, has fled the earth, and now it is believed / the just maid was not the last to fly to the mansions on high. / Nevertheless in the meanwhile the horror of war resounds around you, / and you live alone and destitute on the unfamiliar soil; / and in your foreign residence, indigent, you seek the sustenance [85] / which the hearth of your forefathers does not tender you. / Fatherland, hard parent, and more cruel than the white cliffs / which the spuming wave of your coast beats, / do you think it right thus to expose your innocent children? / To a strange soil thus do you drive them with hard-heartedness? [90] / and do you suffer them to seek livelihood in remote lands / whom provident God himself has sent to you, / and who bring joyous messages from heaven, and who / teach the way which leads beyond the grave to the stars?
¹⁷
/ Indeed, deservedly, may you, O Fatherland, live enclosed in Stygian darkness, [95] / and deservedly perish by the eternal hunger of the soul! / Just as the Tishbite prophet
¹⁸
in days gone by / walked the lonely deserts of the earth with unaccustomed step / and the harsh wastes of Arabia, when he fled / from the hands of King Ahab and yours, Sidonian Fury, [100] / and in such fashion, with limbs lacerated by the dreadful-sounding whip, / was Cilician Paul
¹⁹
driven from the Emathian city; / and the ungrateful citizen of fishy Gergessa / bade Jesus himself depart from his coasts.
²⁰
/ But you, my tutor, take heart; let not your anxious hope fall from griefs, [105] / nor pale dread terrify your bones. / Although you may be covered over by shining arms / and a thousand spears threaten you with death, / assuredly your unarmed side shall not be violated by any weapon / and no lance will drink your blood. [110] / For you yourself will be safe under the radiant aegis of God.
²¹
/ He will be guardian to you, and he will be champion to you; / he who under the walls of Sion’s fortress / vanquished so many Assyrian soldiers in the silent night,
²²
/ and turned in flight those whom venerable Damascus [115] / sent to the borders of Samaria from her ancient plains,
²³
/ and affrighted the thronging cohorts with their terrified king / when the glorious trumpet sounded in the empty air, / when the horny hoof scourged the dusty plain, / when the driven chariot shook the sandy ground, [120] / and the neighing of horses rushing into battle was heard, / and the clanking of iron swords, and the deep roar of men. / And you (because it still remains for the sick at heart) remember to hope / and conquer these misfortunes by your magnanimous heart. / And do not doubt at one time or other to enjoy more fortunate years [125] / and to be able to see again your native home.

(
Mar. ? 1627
)

¹
Young (1587?–1655) was Milton’s tutor in 1618–20(?). By 1620 he was in Hamburg, visiting England in Mar.–July 1621 and again sometime in Jan.–Apr. 1625 (see ll. 33–38); he returned sometime between Jan. and Mar. 1628. On Mar. 27, 1628, he became vicar of St. Peter and St. Mary in Stowmarket, Suffolk. Familiar Letter 1 was written Mar. 26, 1627, to accompany this elegy, which it mentions; a further letter (No. 4), dated July 21, 1628, also survives. Young was the “TY” of “SMECTYMNUUS,” the composite name of the five divines who in 1641 attacked episcopacy with
An Answer to a Book entituled “An Humble Remonstrance,”
to which was added
A Postscript
, probably written by Milton (see Wolfe, Yale Prose, I, 961–65). Barker (
MLR
, XXXII, 1937, 517-26) suggests that Young was the friend to whom
Of Reformation
was written, and Parker (
TLS
, May 16, 1936, p. 420) believes him the unknown friend of the letter in TM.