The Complete Poetry of John Milton (49 page)
Read The Complete Poetry of John Milton Online
Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
Horatius ex Pyrrhae illecebris tanquam e naufragio enataverat, cujus amore irretitos, affirmat esse miseros.
Quis multa garcilis te puer in rosa
Perfusus liquidis urget odoribus,
Grato,
Pyrrha
, sub antro?
Cui flavam religas comam
5
Simplex munditie? heu quoties fidem
Mutatosque deos flebit, et aspera
Nigris æquora ventis
Emirabitur insolens,
Qui nunc te fruitur credulus, aurea:
10
Qui semper vacuam, semper amabilem
Sperat, nescius auræ
Fallacis. miseri quibus
Intentata nites. me tabula sacer
Votiva paries indicat uvida
15
Suspendisse potenti
Vestimenta maris Deo.
A book was writt of late call’d
Tetrachordon
,
1
And wov’n close both matter, form, and stile,
The subject new; it walk’d the town a while,
Numbring good intellects; now seldom por’d on.
5
Cries the stall-reader, bless us! what a word on
A title page is this! and som in file
Stand spelling fals, while one might walk to Mile-
End Green.
2
Why is it harder, Sirs, then Gordon,
3
Colkitto, or Macdonnell, or Galasp?
4
10
Those rugged names to our like mouths grow sleek
That would have made
Quintilian
5
stare and gasp.
Thy age, like ours, O Soul of Sir
John Cheek
,
6
Hated not learning wors then toad or Asp,
When thou taught’st
Cambridge
, and King
Edward
Greek.
7
(
Jan. 1647 ?
)
1
Milton’s pamphlet confirming his
Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce
was published Mar. 4, 1645. The four “tones” on which Milton’s tetrachord is built are Gen. i. 27-28, Deut. xxiv. 1-2, Matt. v. 31-32, and 1 Cor. vii. 10-16, “the foure chief places in Scripture, which treat of Mariage, or nullities in Mariage.”
2
the intersection of Cambridge Heath Road and Whitechapel Road, which is one measured mile along the latter thoroughfare from Aldgate.
3
James Gordon, Lord Aboyne, influential, though vacillating, adherent of the Scots Royalist James Graham, Marquis of Montrose; at the battle of Auldearn, May 8-9, 1645, he aided MacDonnell in routing the Parliamentary army.
4
The three names all refer to Alexander MacDonnell, known as MacColkitto and MacGillespie, Montrose’s major-general. For his victory at Auldearn, MacDonnell is famed in Gaelic legend; he was knighted by Montrose in 1645. Milton contrasts the repute of these two enemies of the Parliamentarians in mid-1645 and the concurrent derision of advocates of true liberty like himself.
5
the Roman rhetorician, whose
Institutio Oratorio
(“The Education of an Orator”) warned of the corruptions of language from foreign sources and of the need for the study of Greek.
6
First professor of Greek at Cambridge, Cheke introduced “Erasmian” pronunciation, rejecting the identical sounding of various vowels and diphthongs. He became tutor to Prince Edward in 1544, continuing after the accession, and was one of seven divines appointed to draw up a body of laws for church administration.
7
The final five lines are concerned with (1) the lack of learning and of appreciation of learning in Milton’s age, which is contrasted with the humanism of Cheke’s “reformative age” when Quintilian’s concept that education should produce men of high character and culture prevailed; and (2) a comparison between the reception of his efforts and of the work by Cheke and other divines to enact relaxations of church laws of divorce (discussed on p. 97 of
Tetrachordon
). Only Edward VI’s untimely death prevented establishment of these divorce laws by Parliament.
1
Because you have thrown off your Prelate Lord
And with stiff vows renounc’d his Liturgie
2
To seise the widow’d whore Plurality
3
From them whose sin ye envi’d, not abhorr’d,
5
Dare ye for this adjure the civill sword
To force our Consciences that Christ set free,
And ride us with a classic Hierarchy
4
Taught ye by meer
A.S.
5
and
Rotherford?
6
Men whose life, learning, faith and pure intent
10
Would have bin held in high esteem with
Paul
Must now be nam’d and printed Hereticks
By shallow
Edwards
7
and Scotch what d’ye call;
8
But we doe hope to find out all your tricks,
Your plots and packings wors then those of
Trent
,
9
15
That so the Parlament
May with their wholsom and preventive sheares
Clip your Phylacteries
10
though bauk your eares
And succour our just feares
When they shall read this cleerly in your charge
20
New Presbyter is but old Preist writt large.
11
(
early 1647 ?
)
1
The “new” forcers of conscience as they were called in the 1673 printing of this tailed sonnet may be those who in the last months of 1646 particularly demanded immediate legislation for the repression of heresy and error and who tried to effect Presbyterian organization throughout England. In January 1647 Clarendon commented on the intolerant measures which were provoking revolt among the Independents and the army (see
State Papers
, Nos. 2396, 2405).
2
In Aug. 1645 the House of Commons forbade public and private use of the
Book of Common Prayer.
3
Although prelates who held multiple posts were “thrown off” when episcopacy was formally abolished in July 1643, the Presbyterian system supported the same kind of pluralism.
4
Presbyterian administration was built on the classis (or synod), which was composed of all ministers and elders of a district; it thus had control over the clergy and religious affairs in that district. Provinces were to be established throughout England, according to the Westminster Assembly, which in turn were to be subdivided into classes.
5
Adam Stewart, a Scot who, using only initials, pamphleteered for orthodox Presbyterianism; he was a member of both Assembly and Parliament.
6
Samuel Rutherford (1600?–1661), author of
Plea for Presbytery
(1642) and Scots member of the Assembly from 1643 through 1647.
7
Thomas Edwards (1599-1647), author of
Gangraena
(1646), subtitled, “a Catalogue and Discovery of many of the Errours, Heresies, Blasphemies and pernicious Practices of the Sectaries of this time,” and of
The Casting down of the last Stronghold of Satan, or a Treatise against Toleration and pretended Liberty of Conscience
(1647).
8
Robert Baillie (1599-1662), another Scots member of the Assembly (until 1646), who directed his attacks against the Independents.
9
The Council of Trent, opened in 1545, undertook the reform of the Church in three separate synods through 1563, but any hope of reconciliation with the Protestants was thwarted by dogmatic decisions and a voting procedure which packed the Council in the Pope’s favor.
10
square leather boxes containing scriptural passages, worn by Jews at prayer. But they became symbols of hypocrisy since they were worn openly by the Pharisees only to impress others (Matt. xxiii. 5). However, such ministers as Milton indicts will not be removed from future service to the Church—the meaning of the image of not cutting off (bauking) their ears (see Donald C. Dorian,
MLN
, LVI, 1941, 63). William Prynne, who is referred to in the original version of this line in the TM, had both ears cut off in 1637 for his attack against episcopacy.
11
“Preist” and the longer “Presbyter” both derive from the Greek
presbyteros.
1
1
Thou Shepherd that dost Israel
keep
Give ear
in time of need
,
Who leadest like a flock of sheep
Thy loved
Josephs seed,
5
That sitt’st between the Cherubs
bright
Between their wings out-spread
,
Shine forth,
and from thy cloud give light
,
And on our foes thy dread.
2
In Ephraims view and Benjamins,
10
And in Manasse’s sight
Awake
a
thy strength, come, and
be seen
To
save us
by thy might.
3
Turn us again,
thy grace divine
To us
O God
vouchsafe;
15
Cause thou thy face on us to shine
And then we shall be safe.
4
Lord God of Hosts, how long wilt thou,
How long wilt thou declare
Thy
b
smoaking wrath,
and angry brow
20
Against thy peoples praier?
5
Thou feed’st them with the bread of tears,
Their bread with tears they eat,
And mak’st them
c
largely drink the tears
Wherwith their cheeks are wet.
25
6
A strife thou mak’st us
and a prey
To every nieghbour foe,
Among themselves they
d
laugh, they
d
play,
And
d
flouts at us they throw.
7
Return us,
and thy grace divine
,
30
O God of Hosts
vouchsafe;
Cause thou thy face on us to shine,
And then we shall be safe.
8
A Vine from Ægypt thou hast brought,
Thy free love made it thine
,