The Complete Poems

by John Milton

  18. god Hymen, the god of marriage.

  20. scarce-well-lighted flame The sputtering of Hymen’s torch foreboded death at the wedding of Orpheus and Eurydice (Ovid, Met. x 6–7). Contrast L’Allegro 125–6.

  22. cypress an emblem of funerals. Hymen’s garland was composed of roses and marjoram.

  23. matrons midwives (OED 2).

  24. greet her of congratulate her on.

  son Charles, born 1629, later sixth Marquis and Duke of Bolton.

  26. Lucina Juno Lucina, the Roman goddess of childbirth.

  27. blame fault.

  28. Atropos one of the three Fates or Parcae. She cut the thread of life which Clotho spun and Lachesis measured. As Atropos Morta she presided over stillbirth.

  35. slip cutting taken from a plant. In M.’s simile the slip is Jane, the flower is her son, and the swain is death. The swain means to pluck only the flower, but takes the cutting. Homer (II. viii 306–8) and Virgil (Aen. ix 433–6) liken dying warriors to flowers cut by the plough or weighed down by a vernal shower (39).

  43–6. pearls… funeral The sad mom is imagined to have foreseen the blossom’s destruction and so wept tears of dew. Aurora, goddess of the dawn, wept dew for her son Memnon, slain by Achilles.

  49. travail labour, including ‘pain of childbirth’ (OED 4).

  50. seize establish in a place of dignity (OED 1): a legal term (notice lease). 1645 and 1673 have the spelling sease, and Brooks and Hardy (121–2) hear a play on ‘cease’ meaning ‘bring to rest’ (OED 7).

  56. Helicon a mountain in Boeotia, sacred to the Muses.

  57. bays sprigs of laurel, emblematic of poetry.

  59. Came the river Cam, hence Cambridge. Cp. Lycidas 103.

  63. Syrian shepherdess Rachel. See Gen. 30. 22–4 for her bearing Joseph after years of barrenness, and Gen. 35. 16–20 for her death in giving birth to Benjamin.

  66. him Jacob. He served Rachel’s father Laban for fourteen years so as to win Rachel (Gen. 29. 18–27).

  Song. On May Morning

  Dated variously between 1629 and 1631. The similarities to M.’s Latin Elegia V, composed in the spring of 1629, suggest 1 May 1629 as a likely date. Brooks and Hardy (123) note that ‘May is not merely… the month, but a girl in a May-day dance’, led in by another dancer, Venus ‘the goddess of love and fertility’. May is implicitly the May Queen presiding over a fertility rite. Cp. Spenser, Shep. Cal. May 1–36.

  1. morning star Venus.

  harbinger forerunner. Cp. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream III ii 380: ‘yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger’, and Sandys’s Ovid, xv 189–91: ‘Lucifer… the Harbinger of Day’.

  2–4. dancing… pale primrose Cp. Phineas Fletcher, The Apollyonists (1627) v 27: ‘The lovely Spring / Comes dancing on; the Primrose strewes her way’.

  3. green lap Cp. Spenser, FQ VII vii 34, where May, ‘the fayrest mayd on ground’, throws ‘flowres out of her lap’. Cp. also Shakespeare, Richard II V ii 46: ‘the green lap of the new-come spring’.

  5–6. inspire… warm desire Cp. Phineas Fletcher, The Purple Island xii 82: ‘Those springing thoughts in winter hearts inspire, / Inspiriting dead souls, and quickning warm desire’. Fletcher is describing the eyes of Christ’s bride, the Church, which he likens to ‘May-time stars’. The Purple Island was published in 1633, but M. might have seen a MS before then. See Nativity 239n.

  On Shakespeare. 1630

  M.’s first published English poem; it appeared anonymously in the Second Folio of Shakespeare (1632) as An Epitaph on the admirable Dramatic Poet, W. Shakespeare. It reappeared (with M.’s initials) in Poems: Written by Wil. Shakespeare, Gent. (1640). The present title is used in 1645 and 1673.

  1–8. What needs… monument echoing the anonymous epitaph on Sir Edward Stanley, which was attributed to Shakespeare:

  Not monumental stones preserves our fame;

  Nor sky-aspiring pyramids our name;

  The memory of him for whom this stands

  Shall outlive marble and defacers’ hands…

  Cp. also Horace, Odes iii 30, Propertius III ii 19, Shakespeare, Sonnet LV, William Browne, Britannia’s Pastorals (1613–16) II i 1016–17, and line 22 of Jonson’s tribute in Shakespeare’s First Folio: ‘Thou art a monument without a tomb’.

  1 (and 6). What why.

  4. *ypointing OED’s earliest participial instance of ‘pointing’. The prefix ‘y-’ is a Spenserian archaism, here used inaccurately. The ME ‘y-’ was a prefix of the past, not the present, participle.

  5. son of Memory M. implies that Shakespeare was brother to the Muses (daughters of Memory). Browne calls the English poets ‘sons of Memory’ (Britannia’s Pastorals II i 1027). Cp. Lycidas 19.

  6. weak] 1640, 1645, 1673; dull 1632.

  8. live-long *enduring (OED 2, sole instance). Brooks and Hardy (126) hear a secondary suggestion that the monument is ‘alive’, because built of ‘human stone’ (Shakespeare’s readers). See below, 14n. 1632 has ‘lasting’.

  10. easy numbers inspired verse. Cp. Heminge and Condell’s preface to the First Folio (1623): ‘His mind and hand went together; And what he thought, he uttered with that easinesse, that wee have scarse received from him a blot in his papers’. Contrast Jonson’s praise of Shakespeare’s ‘art’ (To the Memory of… Mr. William Shakespeare 55–64).

  11. unvalued invaluable (OED 1).

  12. Delphic Apollo, god of poetry, had his oracle at Delphi.

  13. itself] 1645, 1673; herself 1632; ourself 1640.

  14. Dost make us marble Cp. II Penseroso 42: ‘Forget thyself to marble’. Here the conceit implies that Shakespeare’s readers will become the monument spoken of in line 8.

  conceiving becoming possessed with emotion (OED 6).

  On the University Carrier

  Thomas Hobson died, aged eighty-six, on 1 January 1631. He had been a familiar Cambridge figure for over sixty years, driving a weekly coach to London and hiring out horses. His insistence that customers take the horse nearest the door gave rise to the phrase ‘Hobson’s choice’. His death occasioned many affectionate, semi-comic verses. M.’s first Hobson poem appeared anonymously, with a few inferior variants, in Wit Restored (1658).

  1. girt girth: a leather belt securing the saddle to a horse.

  5. ’Tmas The use of ‘it’ for ‘he’ (OED 2d) was not insulting. Cp. Shakespeare, Macbeth I iv 58: ‘It is a peerless kinsman’.

  shifter trickster (OED 3), with puns on ‘transfer from one place to another’, ‘change lodgings’, ‘provide for one’s own safety’, ‘make a living’, ‘elude’ (OED ‘shift’ 12, 15, 7, 5, 17), and ‘put off, defer’ (OED 17c), as in ‘death nae langer wad be shifted’ (1721).

  8. Dodged *used shifts or changes of position so as to baffle or catch him (OED 1b).

  the Bull the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate (Hobson’s London terminus).

  10. Had not… failed The plague closed the university in 1630, and so put an end to Hobson’s journeys.

  carriage both ‘conveyance’ and ‘habitual behaviour’ (OED 15).

  13. ta’en… inn taken a room in his last inn.

  14. chamberlain attendant at an inn in charge of the bedchambers.

  Another on the Same

  See previous headnote. Incomplete versions of this poem were published in A Banquet of Jests (1640) and Wit Restored (1658).

  4. jog… trot A ‘jog-trot’ is a slow, monotonous pace. OED cites this sense only from 1709, but Hobson was famous for his advice to impatient travellers: ‘You will get to London time enough, if you don’t ride too fast.’

  5. sphere-metal the indestructible material of the celestial spheres, which were in perpetual motion.

  7. Time numbers motion Plato and Aristotle call time a measure of motion (see PL v 579–82n).

  9. engine machine, here a clock.

  10. principles *motive forces in a machine (OED 9) and rules adopted as a guide to action (OED 7).

  12. breathing rest, breathing space.

  14. v
acation freedom from business (OED 1). term cessation (OED ib), with obvious puns on the university calendar.

  15. drive away banish (with an obvious pun).

  16. quickened restored to life and hurried up (see above, 4n).

  18. carry… fetched A play on ‘fetch and carry’ and on ‘fetch’ meaning ‘restore to consciousness’ (OED 2d).

  19. cross opposed (to Hobson’s travels). doctors of the university.

  20. put down deposed from office (OED v1 41c) and killed (OED 41g). bearers porters (OED 1) and pall-bearers (OED 1c).

  22. heaviness grief (with an obvious pun).

  26. pressed to death Felons who refused to plead were placed under a board and crushed with weights. M. plays on that sense and ‘ready for action’ (OED ‘prest’ 1), as in ‘prest and ready for any service’ (1632).

  more weight There might be a pun on ‘wait’ (though Hobson is tired of waiting). The felon’s cry was a plea for immediate death.

  29–31. Obedient… seas i.e. he went back and forth like the tides.

  32. wain wagon, with a pun on ‘wane’ suggesting tides (OED v ic) and the declining period of a person’s life (OED sb1 6).

  increase growth in wealth (OED 4) and rising of the tide (OED 1b).

  34. superscriptïon address on a letter and inscription on a grave.

  L’Allegro

  The date of the companion poems L’Allegro and Il Penseroso is unknown. They may have been written during M.’s last long vacation from Cambridge (summer 1631), or when he was in Hammersmith (1632–5) or Horton (1635–8). L’Allegro is Italian for ‘the cheerful man’. II Penseroso is Italian for ‘the contemplative man’.

  1. Melancholy in Galenic medicine, a physiological condition caused by an excess of black bile. It could lead to madness or depression. Aristotelian medicine recognized another kind of melancholy, which (in moderate degrees) was suited to poetic or prophetic inspiration. Thus the melancholy banished here might not be the ‘divinest Melancholy’ of II Penseroso. See Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621).

  2. Of… born The genealogy is M.’s invention. Cerberus was the hound of Hades. M. substitutes him for Night’s consort, Erebus. H. Neville Davies (MQ 23, March 1989, 1–7) hears a play between Cerberus and ‘Erebus’ and between ‘heart-eating’ and ‘heart-easing’ (13). Cerberus means ‘heart-eating’. Cp. ‘eating cares’ (135).

  3. Stygian cave Cerberus lived in a cave on the banks of the Styx. Aeneas heard shrieks of dead children as he passed the cave (Virgil, Aen. vi 426–7).

  5. uncouth desolate.

  cell den of a wild beast (OED 3c).

  6. brooding *hovering over (OED 6, earliest instance 1697) and *meditating moodily (OED 7, earliest instance 1751).

  7. night-raven a name given to a nocturnal bird whose cry was a bad omen; perhaps an owl.

  8. shades trees.

  *low-browed of rocks: beetling (OED 2).

  10. Cimmerian Homer’s Cimmerians live on the edge of the world in a land of perpetual darkness (Od. xi 13–19).

  11. fair and free a common phrase in which free means ‘of gentle birth and breeding’. Cp. Chaucer, Romance of the Rose 633: ‘Mirthe, that is so fair and free’.

  12. yclept named (Spenserian archaism).

  Euphrosyne ‘Mirth’, one of the three Graces. Her sisters were Aglaia (‘Brilliance’) and Thalia (‘Bloom’). One tradition made Venus and Bacchus their parents.

  17. as some sager sing The genealogy is M.’s invention, but Jonson pairs Zephyr (the west wind) with Aurora (the dawn) in his Entertainment at Highgate (1616). Like M., Jonson rhymes ‘a-Maying’ with ‘playing’ (93–4). M.’s playing includes ‘have sexual intercourse’ (OED 10c, cp. PL ix 1027).

  20. a-Maying celebrating the rites of May Day (an ancient fertility rite associated with sexual licence).

  21. beds of violets Adam and Eve make love on a bed of violets after their Fall (PL ix 1034–45). Cp. also Hera’s seduction of Zeus in Homer, II. xiv 346–51.

  22. roses washed in dew Cp. Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew II i 174: ‘morning roses newly washed with dew’.

  24. buxom, blithe, and debonair a common concatenation, as in Thomas Randolph, Aristippus (1630), 18: ‘A Bowle of wine is wondrous boone cheere / To make one blith, buxome, and deboneere’.

  buxom bright, lively.

  debonair affable, courteous. Davies (see above, 2n) hears a play on de bon air alluding to Euphrosyne’s father, the wind-god Zephyrus.

  27. Quips witty sayings.

  Cranks verbal tricks.

  wanton carefree (OED 3).

  Wiles playful tricks.

  28. Becks upward nods, ‘come-ons’. Cp. Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy III ii II iv: ‘With becks and nods he first began / To try the wench’s mind, / With becks and nods and smiles again / An answer he did find’.

  29. Hebe goddess of youth.

  31–2. Sport… sides Cp. Phineas Fletcher, The Purple Island iv 13: ‘Here sportfull Laughter dwells, here ever sitting, / Defies all lumpish griefs, and wrinkled care’. The Purple Island was published in 1633 but M. might have seen a MS before then. See Nativity 239n.

  33. trip it dance.

  ye] 1645; you 1673.

  34. fantastic *making elaborate movements (OED 6b). Cp. ‘light fantastic round’ (A Masque 144) and Drayton, Nimphidia (1627) 29: ‘light fantastick mayde’.

  40. unreprovèd irreproachable. A Latin use of the past participle.

  45–6. to come… good morrow Opinion is divided as to whether it is

  L’Allegro or the lark who comes to L’Allegro’s window. The syntax favours

  L’Allegro, but editors prior to Masson (1874) assumed it was the lark.

  45. in spite of sorrow in defiance of sorrow (not ‘despite an existing sorrow’).

  50. Scatters the rear a military metaphor. Cp. PL vi 12–18.

  52. Stoutly struts Cp. the peacock in Sylvester, DWW (1592–1608) I iv (1605): ‘To woo his Mistresse, strowting stately by-her’ (188).

  55. hoar grey from lack of foliage (OED 4) or from mist.

  57. not unseen Contrast II Penseroso, who walks ‘unseen’ (65).

  60. state stately progress, as of a monarch.

  62. dight arrayed.

  67. tells his tale either ‘numbers his flock’ (as in William Browne, The Shepherd’s Pipe v 7–10) or ‘tells his story’ (as in Browne’s Britannia’s Pastorals I iii 355–6).

  71. Russet lawns *untilled land (OED ‘lawn’ 1b) scorched reddish-brown by the sun.

  fallows ploughed land (OED 1).

  72. nibbling flocks Cp. Shakespeare, The Tempest IV i 62: ‘nibbling sheep’.

  74. labouring moving slowly with painful exertion (OED 14, hence rest).

  75. pied variegated. Cp. Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost V ii 882: ‘daisies pied’.

  78. tufted growing in clusters.

  79. lies lodges.

  80. Cynosure the Pole Star, hence ‘centre of attraction’ (OED 2b). Cp. A Masque 342n.

  83—88. Corydon and Thyrsis are men, Phyllis and Thestylis women. These are stock pastoral names, but cp. Virgil, Ecl. vii (Corydon meeting Thyrsis) and Ecl. ii 10–11 (Thestylis preparing herbs and messes).

  86. *neat-handed dexterous (OED), implying ‘elegant in cookery’ (OED ‘neat’ 8b).

  90. tanned sun-dried.

  haycock conical heap of hay.

  91. secure carefree (OED 1).

  94. rebecks three-stringed fiddles.

  96. chequered shade Cp. Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus II iii 14–15: ‘the green leaves… make a chequered shadow on the ground’.

  98. holiday The word answers a question that has exercised cultural materialists: ‘Why isn’t anyone in L’Allegro doing any work?’ In fact the poem does describe work. Phyllis and Thestylis are burdened with chores even while their men enjoy a rare day off (86–8).

  102. Mab queen of the fairies. Cp. Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet I iv 54–95 and Jonson, Entertainment at Althorp (1616) 47–
54, where Mab ‘pinches countrey wenches’ and robs ‘cream-bowles’.

  junkets cream cheeses or other cream dishes. ate] eat 1645, 1673; pronounced ‘et’. Cp. PL ix 781.

  103. She the maid telling the story.

  104. And he by] 1645; And by the 1673.

  friar’s lantern the Jack o’ Lantern or Will o’ the Wisp: a delusive light which misled travellers. Cp. A Masque 432–7, PL ix 634–42, and Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream II i 39, III i 106–11.

  105. drudging goblin Hobgoblin (also called Robin Goodfellow and Puck). Most familiar from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he appears in Jonson’s Love Restored (1616), where he ‘sweeps the hearth for the country maids’ and ‘does all their other drudgery’ (54–5).

  106. cream-bowl Robin’s traditional reward. See Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy I ii I ii: ‘A bigger kind there is… called with us hobgoblins and Robin Goodfellows, that would in those superstitious times grind corn for a mess of milk, cut wood, or do any manner of drudgery work.’

  109. end put (corn) into a barn (OED v2). Robin threshes more corn in one night than ten men could stack in a day.

  110. *lubber fiend beneficent goblin, ‘Lob-lie-by-the-fire’. Lubber plays on ‘big, idle lout’ (OED ia) and ‘drudge’ (OED 1c).

  111. chimney fireplace. These were large, so the goblin is of at least human size. Lob-lie-by-the-fire is a ‘Giant’ in Beaumont and Fletcher’s Knight of the Burning Pestle (1613) III iv.

  113. *crop-full filled to repletion (OED 2).

  flings rushes.

  120. weeds of peace courtly raiment. Cp. Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida III iii 239: ‘great Hector in his weeds of peace’.

  triumphs pageants, tournaments (OED 4).

  121. store of many.

  122. Rain influence The ladies’ eyes are imagined as stars, affecting human destiny by raining etherial fluid down on mankind. See Nativity 71n.

  125. Hymen the god of marriage. The saffron robe and taper (torch) are his usual attributes.

  126. clear bright (OED 4b). A blazing hymeneal torch was a good omen. Contrast the smoky torch that presaged doom at the wedding of Orpheus and Eurydice (Ovid, Met. x 1–7). Sandys’s 1632 comment describes that torch as burning ‘not clearely’. See below, 145–50n and Epitaph on the Marchioness of Winchester 20.