Himself to sing, and build the lofty rime. He must not float upon his watery bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, English: first, because the infin, in -ing (O. E. -an) is the real equivalent of the classical phrase; and secondly, because the sign 'to' was. properly used with the gerund in -anne or -ennie to denote a purpose. Probably our English poets, not knowing that the form in -ing was really an infinitive, and confounding it with the present participle, which it accidentally resembles, thought that the only way of reproducing the Latin and Greek construction was by the use of the sign 'to' with the verb. How far this estimate of King's poetry is supported by facts we have no adequate means of ascertaining, since only a few copies of his Latin verses are extant (see Masson's Life of Milton, vol. i. pp. 603, 604), which show a fair amount of scholarship, but are of no great poetical merit. Milton may here be using the language of exaggeration, or he may have had other and more sufficient grounds for his opinion than such compositions as these would afford. build the lofty rime] Todd compares Spenser, Ruines of Rome, stanza xxiv. To build with levell of my loftie style That which no handes can evermore compyle;' also Eur. Supp. 998, àoidàs πúρywore, to which we may add Aristoph. Rana, 1004, πυργώσας ῥήματα σεμνά. The Latin condere carmen' (Lucr. v. 2; Hor. A. P. 436, Epist. 1. iii. 24) is probably here imitated; but the original expression does not necessarily contain any metaphor from building, since condere simply means 'to put together," and is therefore applied to any sort of operation which might come under that general notion, such as building, composing, laying in the tomb, &c. ; it is moreover used of prose writing as well as of poetry. Gray, Death of Hoel, following Milton, has build the lofty verse,' and Merrick (circ. 1700), in his Ode to Fancy, 'build the rhyme.' Rime = 'verse,' as in P. L. i. 16. Elsewhere in Milton the word occurs only in the Preface to Paradise Lost, where 'rime' is distinguished from blank verse. Since it is there written rime, but rhyme in P. L. i. 16, Bp. Pearson suggested that Milton purposely varied the spelling to signify the difference of meaning. This idea is at any rate not supported by the present passage, since our poet originally wrote rime in his MS., though the printed editions of 1638 and 1645 both have rhyme. Hence I have adopted in the text what is now known to be the proper orthography. (See Appendix I.) 12 bier] (O. E. bær, L. feretrum), because the waves bear the body on their surface. Cf. Fletcher, Purple Island, i. 210, The dying 6 Cf. swan... tides on her watrie hearse." 13 welter] properly to roll' (wal-low, G.wal-tzen, L. vol-vo, Gr. εἴλ-ω). It was formerly used in a wider sense than at present. Od. Nat. 124; P. L. i. 78; Spens. Ecl. vii. 197, 'These wisards welter in wealth's caves.' Keble, Christian Year (4th S. after Trinity), speaks of the deep weltering flood.' For a very early use of the word see the King's Quhair, by James I. of Scotland, 1423, where the turning of Fortune's wheel is called the sudayn weltering of that Without the meed of some melodious tear. Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well, That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; ilk quhele.' Cf. Pope, Odyssey, xiv. 155, 'he welters on the wave.' Parching] describes generally the effect of exposure to the weather, and is used of cold as well as of heat, P. L. ii. 594, where Newton comp. Ecclus. xliii. 21, 'The cold north wind. . . burneth the wilderness.' Cf. Virg. G. i. 93, Boreæ penetrabile frigus adurat ;' Xen. Anab. IV. v. 3, where the wintry wind is said ἀποκαίειν πάντα. == meed] (G. miethe, akin to μσlós). Cf. l. 84, the only other instance of the word in Milton. Shakspere uses it frequently. Cf. Spens. F. Q. II. iii. 10, honour virtue's meed;' Browne, Brit. Past., 'baye the learned shepherd's meede.' melodious tear] ' mournful strain;' imitated by Mason in his Monody on Pope, the loan of some poetick woe.' Cooper, Tomb of Shakspere, the gurgling notes of her melodious woe;' Shelley, Adonais, 'the lorn nightingale Mourns not her mate with such melodious pain.' Hurd comp. Eur. Suppl. 454, δάκρυα δ ̓ ἐτοιμάζουσι (=a dirge'). Cf. Virg. Æn. ii. 145, 'his lacrimis vitam damus,' i. e. 'to this sorrowful appeal.' In the Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester Milton speaks of his verses as 'tears of perfect moan,' and Spenser entitles his elegy on Sir P. Sidney Tears of the Muses. 15] The customary invocation of the Muses is studied from the opening lines of Hesiod's Theogony. The sacred well' is Aganippe on Mount Helicon (ὄρος μέγα τε ζάθεόν Te), and not, as Keightley supposes, 'a fount of the poet's own creation,' and the seat of Jove' is the altar upon the same hill (βωμὸν ἐρισθενέος Kpovíwvos). Cf. Il Penseroso, 47, 48; Spenser, Ecl. iv. 41, where the name of the mountain is transferred to the spring. 'Well' in the sense of a natural fount occurs only here and in P. L. xi. 416 (from Psalm xxxvi. 9). 17 somewhat loudly] i.e. make no uncertain answer to my appeal (see next line). Todd quotes from Drummond's Elegy on Gustavus Adolphus 'Speak it again, and louder louder yet; Else while we hear the sound we shall forget What it delivers.' 18 coy] (Fr. coi, Lat. quietus), formerly said of things as well as of persons (P. L. iv. 310). Warton instances from the Apology for Smectymnuus a coy flurting style,' i.e. one which deals in quibbling and subterfuge, and thus eludes the grasp of the understanding; also Drayton, Past. Ecl. vii., 'these things are all too coy (i.e. difficult) for me.' Chaucer, Romaunt of the Rose, has the verb acoie, 'to caress.' Cf. Turberville (of Jupiter and Danae), 'when he coyde the closed nunne in a towre.' 19 so may, &c.] probably suggested by the 'sic tibi,' &c. of Virg. Ecl. x. 4. Cf. Ecl. ix. 40; Hor. With lucky words favour my destined urn, And as he passes turn, And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud— For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, proper character as a divinity, though her gender is changed on the poet's own responsibility. There is some awkwardness here in the use of 'muse' for the inspired poet immediately after the invocation of the Muses as the inspirers of the song, but the general sense is clear. In an Italian translation by T. Mathias (1812) Muse' is properly rendered 'cantor.' 20 favour] from favere (evonμeîv) in its technical sense. Hor. Od. III. i. 2. my destined urn] i.e. the tomb destined for me. Forurn' in this sense cf. Shaksp. Cor. v. 5— The most noble corse that ever herald Did follow to his urn.' Dyce, Glossary, p. 477, quotes from Fortiguerra's Ricciardetto, aprir la porta dell' urna' (= tomba). 22] There seems to be no good reason for rejecting the usual interpretation of shroud' in the sense of grave-clothes. Dunster indeed observes that it is 'the Miltonic word for harbour, recess, hidingplace,' and takes it here to mean tomb;' but as Milton's use of the word (as a noun) is confined to this 20 and three other passages (Comus, 147; Od. Nat. 218; P. L. x. 1068), in all of which the context shows that it is employed metaphorically, these references prove nothing as to its meaning in the present instance, where alone its literal sense will apply. Mallet, in his William and Margaret, has the lines 'And clay-cold was her lily hand That held her sable shroud,' where the sense admits of no dispute. Todd's citations from Sylvester are still less to the point, since two of them do not contain the word at all, and in the third it unquestionably means 'dress of mourning,' in its primary acceptation (O. E. scrud) of clothes or covering. Cf. Shaksp. L. Lab. Lost, v. 2, 'A smock shall be your shroud,' and (for the secondary sense) Ezek. xxxi. 3, 'a cedar with a shadowing shroud.' Pennant, in his London, mentions 'a place called the shrouds, a covered space on the side of [Paul's] church.' 23] The poem now passes into the pastoral form; the new paragraph should begin at 7. 25, the present line being connected with 7. 18, I would fain sing for Lycidas, for he was my companion, &c.' Masson, Life of Milton, p. 611, says,The hill is Cambridge, the joint feeding of the flocks is companionship in study, the rural ditties are academic iambics and elegiacs, and old Damotas is either Mr. Chappell or some more kindly fellow of Christ's' (see on 7. 36). Among these college poems were the Elegiacs to T. Young, 1626; the Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill. Vacation Exercise, 1628; and the When the raw blossom of my And guide my boat where Thames and Isis heire, By lowly Eton slides and Windsor proudly faire. But when my tender youth gan fairly blow, I changed large Thames for Ca mus' narrower seas; There as my years, so skill with years did grow, And now my pipe the better sort So that with Limnus and with I durst to challenge all my fisher That by learn'd Camus' banks did spend their youthfull yeares.' 25 lawns] P. L. iv. 252; L'Ailegro, 71; Od. Nat. 85. A lawn is a plaine among trees' (Camden). Cf. L. saltus. The restriction of meaning to grass kept smooth in a garden is comparatively modern (Wordsworth, White Doe of Rylstone, canto iv. 45; Tennyson, In Mem. 94, &c.). The word is variously written lawnd, laund, lande in Piers Plowman, Chaucer, Surrey, 25 Shakspere, &c.; it is the Old Fr. an 26] Milton's habit of early rising is illustrated in the Apology for Smectymnuus (quoted by Warton), where he describes himself as 'upstirring in winter often before the sound of any bell awakens men to labour or devotion; in summer as oft as the bird that first rouses, or not much tardier.' Cf. L'Allegro, 41 foll.; P. L. v. 1-25; ix. 192 200. opening] altered from 'glimmering' in ed. 1638, from the MS. first draft; the improvement is obvious. The phrase is partly imitated by M. Bruce in his Daphnis, when he speaks of the closing lids of light.' Cf. Crashaw, Music's Duel, the Wareyelids of the blushing day.' ton cites Job iii. 9 (margin); xli. 18; Soph. Antig. 103, åμépas Bλépapov; Middleton, Game of Chesse (1625), 'the opening eyelids of the morn.' 27 drove] probably means 'drove our flocks, like 'drive the team afield' in Gray's Elegy; but the word is often used intransitively (like ayew, agere), as in Gay's 3rd Pastoral (Shepherd's Week), Now the sun drove adown the western road.' The a in afield' is a dialectic form an of the preposition on (Wyatt, Abused Lover, now off, now an'), of which the n was naturally dropped before a consonant; before hit was sometimes omitted ('ahead,' &c.), sometimes retained What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn, Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. ('an hunting,' &c.). 'Fell on sleep' occurs in Acts xiii. 36; in Cranmer's Bible the reading was 'a building' in John ii. 20, but it is now in building.' heard what time, &c.] a condensed expression for 'heard the horn of the gray-fly at the time when she sounds it.' Comp. ảкoúELV OTE, audire quum. 28] The gray-fly or trumpet-fly' (Warton). This cannot be the cockchaffer, as some assert, since that insect flies only in the evening. Scott, Critical Essays, observes that the three parts of the day, morning, noon, and evening, are clearly intended. A writer in the Edinburgh Review (July 1868) suggests that the 'gray-fly' may be the grig or cricket, O. E. græg-hama, i. e. gray-coat,' from its colour. If so, the use of 'fly' as applied to this insect may be compared with that of 'taint-worm' in l. 46 (see note there). sultry horn] according to the classical usage by which an epithet is employed for an adverbial phrase denoting time. Farrar, Greek Syntax, p. 81, instances σKотaîos λev, 'Æneas se matutinus agebat,' comparing them with Dryden's 'gently they laid them down as evening sheep.' 29 battening] usually intransitive, to grow fat,' as in Shaksp. Hamlet, iii. 4, 'batten on this moor,' It is used transitively in J. Philips' Cider, bk. i., 'the meadows here with battening_ooze enriched,' and in Brown's Brit. Pastorals, bk. ii. Ist song, 'the batning earth.' The root is bet- (in bet-ter and O. E. bet-an, 'to improve'); 30 there was an older form, battel (cf. Holland's Plutarch, ‘battell soil'), whence the college term 'battels.' Batful' rich' occurs often in the Polyolbion. fresh dews, &c.] Cf. Virg. G. iii. 324-326; Ecl. viii. 15. 30] See Various Readings. Keightley remarks that the evening star 'appears, not rises, and it is never anywhere but on "heaven's descent,' and he endeavours to save Milton from the charge of astronomical inaccuracy by interpreting the allusion of any star that rose about sunset. But the passage from the Faery Queene, III. iv. 51 ('the golden Hesperus was mounted high in top of heaven sheen'), which Keightley himself quotes in his note on Comus, 7. 93, shows that another poet was in fact guilty of the same error. Probably both remembered the auAids doτhp of Apollonius (Argonautica, iv. 1630), which is the same as Hesperus; and it is no necessary imputation of ignorance against Milton to suppose that he meant this star both here and in the Comus, since he was far more likely to have erred in company with the ancients than to have corrected their mistakes by the light of modern discovery (see on 7. 168). The amended line, inferior perhaps to the original on account of its diffuseness, is just such an expansion as a poet might easily produce, if he wished to lengthen the verse without recasting the whole passage. 31 westering]_originally 'burnisht,' which, as Todd observes, is a common epithet of the sun in older poetry. Milton, however, has not so applied it elsewhere. |