The Complete Poetry of John Milton (29 page)
Read The Complete Poetry of John Milton Online
Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
35
Was all in honour and devotion ment
To the great Mistres of yon princely shrine,
Whom with low reverence I adore as mine,
And with all helpfull service will comply
To furder this nights glad solemnity;
40
And lead ye where ye may more neer behold
What shallow-searching
Fame
hath left untold;
Which I full oft amidst these shades alone
Have sate to wonder at, and gaze upon:
For know by lot
12
from
Jove
I am the powr
45
Of this fair Wood, and live in Oak’n bowr,
To nurse the Saplings tall, and curl the grove
With Ringlets quaint, and wanton windings wove.
And all my Plants I save from nightly ill
Of noisom winds, or blasting vapours chill,
50
And from the Boughs brush off the evil dew,
13
And heal the harms of thwarting
14
thunder blew
Or what the cross dire-looking Planet
15
smites,
Or hurtfull Worm
16
with canker’d venom bites.
When Eev’ning gray doth rise, I fetch
17
my round
55
Over the mount, and all this hallow’d ground,
And early ere the odorous breath of morn
Awakes the slumbring leaves, or tassel’d horn
18
Shakes the high thicket, hast I all about,
Number my ranks,
19
and visit every sprout
60
With puissant words, and murmurs made to bless,
20
But els in deep of night when drowsines
Hath lockt up mortal sense, then listen I
To the celestial
Sirens
harmony,
That sit upon the nine enfolded Sphears,
21
65
And sing to those that hold the vital shears,
22
And turn the Adamantine spindle round,
On which the fate of gods and men is wound.
Such sweet compulsion doth in musick lie,
To lull the daughters of
Necessity
70
And keep unsteddy Nature to her Law,
And the low world in measur’d motion draw
After the heav’nly tune, which none can hear
Of human mould with gross unpurged ear;
And yet such musick worthiest were to blaze
75
The peerles height of her immortal praise,
Whose lustre leads us, and for her most fit,
If my inferior hand or voice could hit
Inimitable sounds, yet as we go,
What ere the skill of lesser gods can show,
80
I will assay,
23
her worth to celebrate,
And so attend ye toward her glittering state;
Where ye may all that are of noble stemm
Approach, and kiss her sacred vestures hemm.
2. SONG
O’re the smooth enamel’d green
85
Where no print of step hath been,
Follow me as I sing,
And touch the warbled string.
Under the shady roof
Of branching Elm Star-proof,
90
Follow me;
I will bring you where she sits,
Clad in splendor as befits
Her deity.
Such a rural Queen
95
All
Arcadia
hath not seen.
3. SONG
Nymphs and Shepherds dance no more
By sandy
Ladons
lillied banks.
On old
Lycæus
or
Cyllene
hoar,
Trip no more in twilight ranks,
100
Though
Erymanth
your loss deplore,
A better soyl shall give ye thanks.
From the stony
Mænalus
Bring your Flocks, and live with us.
Heer ye shall have greater grace
105
To serve the Lady of this place.
Though
Syrinx
24
your
Pans
Mistres were,
Yet
Syrinx
well might wait on her.
Such a rural Queen
All
Arcadia
hath not seen.
(
1633-34 ?
)
1
natives of Arcadia, an area of Peloponnesus, whose rivers were Alpheus (l. 30) and Ladon (l. 97) and whose mountains were Lycaeus (l. 98), Cyllene (l. 98), Erymanthus (l. 100), and Maenalus (l. 102).
2
Alice Spencer, widow of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange and fifth Earl of Derby, who married Sir Thomas Egerton in 1600. Her daughter Frances married his son Sir John Egerton, later Earl of Bridgewater, whose children Alice, John, and Thomas may have taken part in the entertainment. The occasion and thus the date of the presentation are uncertain.
3
where the Countess sits on “her shining throne.”
4
prayers.
5
Leto, mother of Apollo and Diana.
6
the Great Mother, whose crown indicated her guidance to men in fortifying their cities (see
Aen.
, X, 252-53).
7
“dares not wager with her” since the odds (advantage) are in her favor.
8
See
Nativity Ode
, n. 40. Henry Lawes (see
Mask
and
Son.
13) probably enacted this role and wrote music for the entertainment.
9
of gentlemanly rank.
10
The river-god Alpheus fell in love with the nymph Arethuse as she bathed. She fled to Ortygia (an island off Sicily) where Diana transformed her into a fountain, but Alpheus flowed beneath the sea (“by secret sluse”) to be united with her.
11
lavish intention.
12
allotment.
13
hoarfrost (frozen dew).
14
traversing (the sky).
15
Saturn; see
Damon
, n. 13.
16
the injurious cankerworm.
17
take.
18
the huntsman’s horn, adorned with tassels.
19
count my rows (of plants).
20
with prayers for growth.
21
See
Nativity Ode
, n. 26.
22
The Fates, the daughters of Necessity, were Clotho, who held the spindle of life, on which the spheres turned; Lachesis, who drew off the thread; and Atropos, who cut it short with her shears.
23
attempt.
24
a nymph, unsuccessfully wooed by Pan.
1
THE PERSONS
The attendant Spirit afterwards in the habit of
Thyrsis
Comus
with his crew
The Lady
1 Brother
2 Brother
Sabrina
the Nymph
The first scene discovers a wild wood. The attendant Spirit descends or enters.
Before the starry threshold of
Joves
court
My mansion is,
2
where those immortal shapes
Of bright aëreal spirits live insphear’d
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
5
Above the smoak and stirr of this dim spot,
Which men call Earth, and with low-thoughted care
Confin’d and pester’d in this pinfold heer,
Strive to keep up a frail and feavourish beeing
Unmindfull of the crown that vertue gives
3
10
After this mortal change to her true servants
Amongst the enthron’d gods on sainted seats.
Yet som there be that by due steps aspire
To lay thir just hands on that golden key
That opes the palace of Eternity:
15
To such my errand is, and but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
4
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.
But to my task.
Neptune
besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream
20
Took in by lot ‘twixt high, and neather
Jove
5
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt Iles
That like to rich and various gems inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep,
Which he to grace his tributary gods
25
By course commits to severall government
And gives them leave to wear thir saphire crowns
And weild thir little tridents, but this Ile
The greatest and the best of all the main
He quarters to his blu-hair’d deities,
30
And all this tract
6
that fronts the falling sun
A noble peer of mickle
7
trust and power
Has in his charge, with temper’d aw to guide
An old and haughty nation proud in Arms:
Where his fair ofspring nurs’t in princely lore
35
Are comming to attend thir fathers state
And new-entrusted Scepter, but thir way
Lies through the perplext paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandring passinger.
40
And heer thir tender age might suffer perill,
But that by quick command from Soveran
Jove
I was dispatcht for thir defence, and guard;
And listen why, for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song
45
From old or modern Bard in hall, or bowr.
Bacchus
, that first from out the purple grape
Crush’t the sweet poyson of mis-used wine
After the
Tuscan
mariners transform’d
8
Coasting the
Tyrrhene
shore, as the winds listed