The Complete Poetry of John Milton (56 page)
Read The Complete Poetry of John Milton Online
Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
Fowl of the Heav’ns, and Fish that through the wet
Sea-paths in shoals do slide. And know no dearth.
O Jehovah our Lord, how wondrous great
And glorious is thy name through all the earth.
(
Aug. 14, 1653
)
Defensio secunda
Gaudete Scombri, et quicquid est piscium salo,
Qui frigidâ hyeme incolitis algentes freta!
Vestrûm misertus ille Salmasius eques
1
Bonus amicire nuditatem cogitat;
5
Chartæque largus apparat papyrinos
Vobis cucullos præferentes Claudii
Insignia nomenque et decus Salmasii,
Gestetis ut per omne cetarium forum
Equitis clientes, scriniis mungentium
10
Cubito
2
virorum, et capsulis gratissimos.
Defensio secunda
Rejoice, mackerel, and whosoever
is
of the fish in the deep, / who may inhabit through the winter the frigid, chilling seas! / That good knight Salmasius
1
in pity meditates / to enwrap your nudity; / and abounding in paper he is furnishing for you [5] / paper garments exhibiting the arms / and name and honor of Claudius Salmasius, / so that through all the fish-market you may deport yourselves / the knight’s followers, in cases right for papers and in little boxes, / most pleasing to men wiping their noses on their sleeve.
2
[10]
(
1654
?)
1
For Salmasius, see note to the verse from
Defensio prima.
The likeness of his name to Latin
salmo
(the salmon) and his presentation with the indiscriminately conferred Order of St. Michael by Louis XIII made Salmasius the target of a punning sneer.
2
“A cant appellation among the Romans for fishmongers,” according to Thomas Warton.
Avenge O Lord thy slaughter’d Saints,
1
whose bones
Lie scatter’d on the
Alpine
mountains cold,
2
Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our Fathers worship’t Stocks and Stones,
3
5
Forget not: in thy book
4
record their groans
Who were thy Sheep and in their antient fold
Slain by the bloody
Piemontese
that roll’d
Mother with Infant down the Rocks.
5
Their moans
The Vales redoubl’d to the Hills, and they
10
To Heav’n. Their martyr’d blood and ashes sow
6
O’re all th’
Italian
fields where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant:
7
that from these may grow
A hunderd-fold,
8
who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the
Babylonian
wo.
9
(
May ? 1655
)
1
Rev. vi. 9-10: “And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?”
2
The “slaughter’d Saints” were the Vaudois (descendants of the Waldenses) who lived in the foothills of the Alps. The Waldenses, followers of Peter Waldo, around 1179 broke with the Papacy over dogmas and practices which in their judgment had developed after Apostolic times. Like them, the Vaudois believed the Bible to be the sole guide to salvation. In an effort to stamp out rising heresies and thus win papal favor, the Duke of Savoy ordered the Vaudois to repudiate their dissent, thereby inspiring a fanatic army of Savoyards, French, and Irish to an attack on them on Apr. 24, 1655. Among the Miltonic state papers are letters from Cromwell requesting the cooperation of Sweden, the United Provinces, the Swiss Cantons, and others in putting an end to the persecution, which continued through October.
3
As David S. Berkeley pointed out (
Explicator
, XV, 1957, item 58), Milton thought of the idolaters in Jer. ii. 27, who say “to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou hast brought me forth.”
4
Rev. xx. 12: “And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”
5
Sir Samuel Morland, Cromwell’s representative to Savoy, detailed such charges in
The History of the Evangelical Churches of the Valleys of Piemont
(1658). See also Jer. li. 24-25: “And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the Lord. Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth; and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.”
6
“Blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church” (Tertullian,
Apologeticus
, 50). The whore of Babylon (which Milton and other Protestants identified with the Roman Catholic Church) is “drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus” (Rev. xvii. 6).
7
the Pope; compare the poem on the Gunpowder Plot beginning “James derided,” n. 2.
8
To the parable of the sower, whose seed “bringeth forth, some an hundredfold” (Matt. xiii. 3-23), suggests Kester Svendsen (
Shakespeare Ass’n. Bulletin
, XX, 1945, p. 155, n. 12), Milton added the legend of Cadmus, who sowed dragon’s teeth from which sprang up armed warriors. It is interesting to note that this is the hundredth word in the sonnet. The eleven words that complete the poem suggest regeneration and thus salvation.
9
The fall and desolation of Babylon is described in Jer. li and Rev. xviii; in its fall will be “found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and all that were slain upon the earth” (Rev. xviii. 24).
When I consider how my light
is
spent,
E’re half my days
1
in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent
5
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
2
Doth God exact day labour, light deny’d,
3
I fondly
4
ask; but patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
10
Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his mild yoak,
5
they serve him best, his State
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
And post o’re Land and Ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand
6
and wait.
(
Oct. ? 1655
)
1
that is, probably before he had reached the age of fifty. If so, Milton may have thought of the Lord’s words after the scourging and purifying of Israel: “There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days; for the child shall die an hundred years old but the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed” (Isa. lxv. 20). The phrase has frequently been interpreted in terms of normal life span and the Biblical three score and ten years, requiring an earlier date of composition. Maurice Kelley reviews the external evidence for dating in 1655 in
Seventeenth-Century News
, XI (1953), 29.
2
The use of the parable of the talents (Matt. xxv. 14-30) emphasizes both Milton’s service despite blindness and his single-purposed ability “to reason against that man” who has brought oppression to God’s children (
Reason
, p. 35). In a letter to a friend in the TM, Milton also mentioned “that command in the gospel set out by the terrible seasing of him that hid the talent”; and in
Reason
(p. 35) he spoke of “those few talents which God at that present had lent me.” He who did not employ his one talent had it taken away and given to the servant having ten.
3
In the letter to a friend he remarked “that the day is at hand wherin Christ commands all to labour while there is light” (John ix. 4); with this command Jesus turned to heal the blind man. Behind the play of “light” and “dark” are the further words of Jesus: “Yet a little while is the light with you. Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you” (John xii. 35).
4
foolishly.
5
Harry F. Robins (
RES
, VII, 1956, 360-66) first noted the pertinency of Christ’s answer to those who would be righteous: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden … Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me … For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. xi. 28-30).
6
The word indicates that Milton is attentively ready to serve God; he is not sitting down. Compare
PL
III, 648-53, and
PR
IV, n. 49.
1
Lawrence
of vertuous Father vertuous Son,
2
Now that the Fields are dank, and ways are mire,
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire
Help wast a sullen day; what may be won
5
From the hard Season gaining: time will run
On smoother, till
Favonius
3
re-inspire
The frozen earth; and cloth in fresh attire
The Lillie and Rose, that neither sow’d nor spun.
4
What neat repast shall feast us, light and choice,
10
Of Attick tast,
5
with wine, whence we may rise
To hear the lute well toucht, or artfull voice
Warble immortal notes and
Tuskan
6
air?
He who of those delights can judge, and spare
7
To interpose them oft, is not unwise.
(
Oct.–Nov. 1655
)
1
Milton’s note of invitation to conversation and a “neat repast” unites the verse epistle and sonnet in a gentle admonition to those who would allow no lightness in their lives. The echoes of Horace’s invitations in
Odes
, I, iv, and I, xi, for example, underline the aptness of style here and in
Son.
21.
2
Edward Lawrence, who died in 1657, was a member of Parliament; his father was Henry Lawrence, Lord President of Cromwell’s Council of State (1653-1659). The line imitates Horace’s “O matre pulchra filia pulchrior” (
Odes
, I, xvi, 1).
3
the west wind (Zephyr), husband of Chloris, goddess of spring.
4
“Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin” (Matt. vi. 28).
5
explained by “light and choice.”
6
Italian.
7
“spare time” as Fraser Neiman (
PMLA
, LXIV, 1949, 480-83) and Elizabeth Jackson (
PMLA
, LXV, 1950, 328-29) illustrate. The source of the lines is
Catonis Disticha
, III, 6: “Interpose occasionally enjoyment amidst your care / that you may be able to bear in your mind whatever toil you find.”