The Complete Poetry of John Milton (15 page)
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Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
Hail native Language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad’st imperfect words with childish trips,
Half unpronounc’t, slide through my infant-lips,
5
Driving dumb silence from the portal dore,
Where he had mutely sate two years before:
Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
10
I know my tongue but little Grace can do thee:
Thou needst not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packt the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintiest dishes shall be serv’d up last.
15
I pray thee then deny me not thy aid
For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee strait to do me once a Pleasure,
And from thy wardrope bring thy chiefest treasure;
Not those new fangled toys, and trimming slight
20
Which takes our late fantasticks with delight,
But cull those richest Robes, and gay’st attire
Which deepest Spirits, and choicest Wits desire:
I have some naked thoughts that rove about
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
25
And wearie of their place do only stay
Till thou hast deck’t them in thy best array;
That so they may without suspect or fears
Fly swiftly to this fair Assembly’s ears;
Yet I had rather, if I were to chuse,
30
Thy service in some graver subject use,
Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou cloath my fancy in fit sound:
Such where the deep transported mind may soar
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav’ns dore
35
Look in, and see each blissful Deitie
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn
Apollo
2
sings
To th’ touch of golden wires, while
Hebe
brings
Immortal Nectar to her Kingly Sire:
3
40
Then passing through the Sphears of watchful fire,
And mistie Regions of wide air next under,
And hills of Snow and lofts of piled Thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey’d
Neptune
raves,
In Heav’ns defiance mustering all his waves;
4
45
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When Beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of Kings and Queens and Heroes old,
Such as the wise
Demodocus
once told
In solemn songs at King
Alcinous
feast,
5
50
While sad
Ulisses
soul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmonie
In willing chains and sweet captivitie.
But fie my wandring Muse how thou dost stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way,
55
Thou know’st it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy Predicament:
6
Then quick about thy purpos’d business come,
That to the next I may resign my Room.
Then
Ens
is represented as Father of the Predicaments his ten Sons, whereof the Eldest stood for
Substance
with his Canons, which
Ens
thus speaking, explains.
7
Good luck befriend thee Son; for at thy birth
60
The Fairy Ladies daunc’t upon the hearth;
8
Thy drowsie Nurse hath sworn she did them spie
Come tripping to the Room where thou didst lie;
And sweetly singing round about thy Bed
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping Head.
65
She heard them give thee this, that thou should’st still
From eyes of mortals walk invisible;
9
Yet there is something that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A
Sybil
old, bow-bent with crooked age,
70
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in times long and dark Prospective Glass
Fore-saw what future dayes should bring to pass;
Your Son, said she (nor can you it prevent),
Shall subject be to many an Accident.
75
O’re all his Brethren he shall Reign as King,
10
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under;
In worth and excellence he shall out-go them,
80
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his Brothers shall depend for Cloathing.
To find a Foe it shall not be his hap,
11
And peace shall lull him in her flowry lap;
85
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his dore
Devouring war
12
shall never cease to roar:
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
13
What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
90
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?
14
The next
, Quantity
and
Quality,
spake in Prose, then
Relation
was call’d by his Name.
Rivers
15
arise; whether thou be the Son
Of utmost
Tweed
, or
Oose
, or gulphie
Dun
,
Or
Trent
, who like some earth-born Giant spreads
His thirty Armes along th’ indented Meads,
95
Or sullen
Mole
that runneth underneath,
Or
Severn
swift, guilty of Maidens
16
death,
Or rockie
Avon
, or of sedgie
Lee
,
Or coaly
Tine
, or antient hallow’d
Dee
,
17
Or
Humber
loud that keeps the
Scythians
Name,
18
100
Or
Medway
smooth, or Royal Towred
Thame.
The rest was Prose.
(
July 1628
)
1
The Latin speeches earlier in this exercise at Cambridge and the English prose following are lost; immediately preceding these verses was the sixth prolusion (“Sportive Exercises on occasion are not inconsistent with philosophical Studies”), in which Milton had “thither packt the worst.” This poetical fragment illustrates his topic well, for the basis of this humor is satire on scholastic logic. The midsummer frolic for which these verses were written consisted of numerous skits and recitals; perhaps Milton’s fellow performers were the “late fantasticks” of l. 20.
2
god of music, usually represented with long hair to indicate his youth.
3
Jove.
4
Neptune defied the gods in seeking revenge on Ulysses for the blinding of his son.
5
See
Od.
, VIII, 499-522.
6
Though he puns on the meaning of the word in logic (see next note), Milton means both the classification of subject assigned him and the plight imposed by not writing what he would prefer.
7
Milton appeared as Ens, the Aristotelian principle of Absolute Being, father of the ten categories (or predicaments) into which all knowledge can be reduced (
Organon
, Part 1). In addition to the eldest son Substance, these are: Quantity, Quality, Relation, Place, Time, Posture, Possession, Action, and Passion. The canons are the fundamental principles or properties which are common to Substance; e.g., Substance supports the other predicaments (or accidents) and keeps them together.
8
Thus Substance has been imbued with good fortune.
9
invisible because Substance cannot be perceived except through the other nine categories (the accidents of Substance). Milton puns on “accident” in l. 74, and the literal meaning of “Substance” (“stands under”) in ll. 74-80.
10
Perhaps Edward King, subject of
Lycidas
, enacted the role of Substance.
11
There is no opposite to Substance.
12
the change of substance bitterly disputed in the Eucharist.
13
Though the accidents make up the whole (lulling peace), some are endlessly opposed (e.g., Action and Passion).
14
a complicated situation, difficult to undo.
15
Not only does Milton catalogue English rivers in the remaining lines, but he puns: George or Nizell Rivers apparently was Relation.
16
Sabrina’s; see
A Mask
, ll. 824-32.
17
The Dee was considered divine since its fluctuations predicted success or failure to the early Britons.
18
Spenser tells the story of Humber, a Scythian king driven into the river where he drowned (
FQ
, II, x, 14-16; IV, xi, 38).
IN ADVENTUM VERIS
In se perpetuo Tempus revolubile gyro
Jam revocat Zephyros vere tepente novos.
Induiturque brevem Tellus reparata juventam,
Jamque soluta gelu dulce virescit humus,
5
Fallor? an et nobis redeunt in carmina vires,
Ingeniumque mihi munere veris adest?
Munere veris adest, iterumque vigescit ab illo
(Quis putet?) atque aliquod jam sibi poscit opus.
Castalis
1
ante oculos, bifidumque cacumen oberrat,