Minor Poems by Milton Part 12

131. To what pleasure does L'Allegro now betake himself?

132. Among the dramatists of the Jacobean time Ben Jonson had especially the repute of scholarship. The sock symbolizes comedy, as the buskin does tragedy. Compare Il Penseroso 102.

133-134. Or sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's child, Warble his native wood-notes wild.

The couplet seems intended to convey the idea of a counterpart or contrast to the _learned sock_ of Jonson. So considered, it is by no means an unhappy characterization.

135. The last of the "unreproved pleasures" that L'Allegro wishes he may enjoy, seems not so much planned to follow the rest in sequence of time as to accompany them and be diffused through them all. Observe the ever in this line. The eating cares are a reminiscence of Horace's _curas edaces_, Ode II 11 18.

136. Lap me in soft Lydian airs. The three chief modes, or moods, of Greek music were the _Lydian_, which was soft and pathetic; the _Dorian_, especially adapted to war (see Par. Lost 550); and the _Phrygian_, which was bold and vehement.

138. the meeting soul. The soul, in its eagerness, goes forth to meet and welcome the music.

139. The word bout seems to point at a piece of music somewhat in the nature of a round, or catch.

145. That Orpheus' self may heave his head. Even Orpheus, who in his life "drew trees, stones, and floods" by the power of his music, and who now reposes in Elysium, would lift his head to listen to the strains that L'Allegro would fain hear.

149. Orpheus, with _his_ music, had succeeded in obtaining from Pluto only a conditional release of his wife Eurydice. He was not to look back upon her till he was quite clear of Pluto's domains. He failed to make good the condition, and so again lost his Eurydice.

Il Penseroso.

3. How little you bested. The verb _bested_ means _to avail, to be of service_. It is not the same word that we find in Isaiah VIII 21, "hardly bestead and hungry."

6. fond here has its primitive meaning, _foolish_. Understand possess in the sense in which it is used in the Bible,--"possessed with devils."

10. Make two syllables of Morpheus.

12. Note that while he invoked Mirth in L'Allegro under her Greek name Euphrosyne, the poet finds no corresponding Greek designation for Melancholy. To us Melancholy seems a name unhappily chosen. But see how Milton applies it in line 62 below, and in Comus 546. To him the word evidently connotes pensive meditation rather than gloomy depression.

14. To hit the sense of human sight: to be gazed at by human eyes.

18. Prince Memnon was a fabled Ethiopian prince, black, and celebrated for his beauty. Recall Virgil's _nigri Memnonis arma_.

19. that starred Ethiop queen. Ca.s.siopeia, wife of the Ethiopian king Cepheus, boasted that she was more beautiful than the Nereids, for which act of presumption she was translated to the skies, where she became the beautiful constellation which we know by her name.

23. bright-haired Vesta. _Vesta_--in Greek, Hestia--"was the G.o.ddess of the home, the guardian of family life. Her spotless purity fitted her peculiarly to be the guardian of virgin modesty."

30. Whilst yet there was no fear of Jove, _i.e._ before Saturn was dethroned by Jupiter.

33. All in a robe of darkest grain. In Par. Lost V 285, the third pair of Raphael's wings have the color of _sky-tinctured grain_; and XI 242, his vest is of purple livelier than "the grain of Sarra," or Tyrian purple.

This would leave us to infer that the robe of Melancholy is of a deep rich color, so dark as to be almost black. Dr. Murray quotes from Southey's _Thalaba_, "The ebony ... with darkness feeds its boughs of raven grain." What objection is there to making the _grain_ in Milton's pa.s.sage _black_?

35. And sable stole of cypress lawn. Dr. Murray thus defines _cypress lawn_, "A light transparent material resembling cobweb lawn or c.r.a.pe; like the latter it was, when black, much used for habiliments of mourning."

37. Come; but keep thy wonted state. Compare with this pa.s.sage, L'Allegro 33.

40. Thy rapt soul sitting in thine eyes. In Cymbeline I 6 51 we find the present tense of the verb of which _rapt_ is the participle: "What, dear Sir, thus raps you?" Do not confound this word with _rap_, meaning to strike.

42. Forget thyself to marble. With this compare On Shakespeare 14.

43. With a sad leaden downward cast. So in Love's Labor's Lost IV 3 321, "In leaden contemplation;" Oth.e.l.lo III 4 177, "I have this while with leaden thoughts been pressed." So also Gray in the Hymn to Adversity, "With leaden eye that loves the ground."

45-55. Compare the company which Il Penseroso entreats Melancholy to bring along with her with that which L'Allegro wishes to see attending Mirth.

46. Spare Fast, that oft with G.o.ds doth diet. Only the rigid ascetic has a spiritual ear so finely trained that he hears the celestial music.

48. Aye, as their rhymes show, is always p.r.o.nounced by the poets with the vowel sound in _day_.

53. the fiery-wheeled throne. See Daniel VII 9.

54. The Cherub Contemplation. p.r.o.nounce _contemplation_ with five syllables. It is difficult to form a distinct conception of the nature and office of the _cherub_ of the Scriptures. Milton in many pa.s.sages of Par. Lost follows, with regard to the heavenly beings, the account given by Dionysius the Areopagite in his Celestial Hierarchy. According to Dionysius there were nine orders or ranks of beings in heaven, namely,--seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, princ.i.p.alities, archangels, angels. The cherubim have the special attribute of knowledge and contemplation of divine things.

55. hist, primarily an interjection commanding silence, becomes here a verb.

56. With the introduction of the nightingale comes the first intimation of the time of day at which Il Penseroso conceives the course of his satisfactions to begin.

57. Everywhere else in Milton plight is used with its modern connotations.

59. The moon stops to hear the nightingale's song.

65. Remember L'Allegro's _not unseen_.

77. Up to this point Il Penseroso has been walking in the open air.

78. removed,--remote, retired.

87. As the Bear never sets, to out.w.a.tch him must mean to sit up all night.

88. With thrice great Hermes. "Hermes Trismegistos--Hermes thrice-greatest--is the name given by the Neo-Platonists and the devotees of mysticism and alchemy to the Egyptian G.o.d Thoth, regarded as more or less identified with the Grecian Hermes, and as the author of all mysterious doctrines, and especially of the secrets of alchemy." (The _New Eng. Dicty._) To such studies the serious mediaeval scholars devoted themselves. To unsphere the spirit of Plato is to call him from the sphere in which he abides in the other world, or, simply, to take in hand for study his writings on immortality.

93-96. On the four cla.s.ses of demons,--Salamanders, Sylphs, Nymphs, Gnomes,--see Pope's Rape of the Lock. These demons are in complicity with the planets and other heavenly bodies to influence mortals.

97-102. Thebes, Pelops' line, and the tale of Troy are the staple subjects of the great Attic tragedians. It seems strange that the poet finds no occasion to name Shakespeare here, as well as in L'Allegro.

104-105. Musaeus and Orpheus are semi-mythical bards, to whom is ascribed a greatness proportioned to their obscurity.

105-108. See note on L'Allegro, 149.

109-115. Or call up him that left half-told. This refers to Chaucer and to his Squieres Tale in the Canterbury Tales. It is left unfinished. Note that Milton changes not only the spelling but the accent of the chief character's name. Chaucer writes, "This n.o.ble king was cleped Cambinskan."

120. Stories in which more is meant than meets the ear refer to allegories, like the Fairy Queen.

121. Having thus filled the night with the occupations that he loves, Il Penseroso now greets the morning, which he hopes to find stormy with wind and rain.

122. civil-suited Morn: _i.e._ Morn in the everyday habiliments of business.

123-124. Eos--Aurora, the Dawn--carried off several youths distinguished for their beauty. the Attic boy is probably Cephalus, whom she stole from his wife Procris.