The Complete Poems (Penguin Classics)

by John Milton

  1671

  Paradise Regain’d. A Poem in IV Books. To which is added Samson Agonistes (1671)

  1673

  Poems, &c. Upon Several Occasions (1673)

  The following abbreviations are used for titles of works by Milton.

  CD

  Christian Doctrine (De Doctrina Christiana)

  DDD

  Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce

  Ep. Dam.

  Epitaphium Damonis

  Nativity

  On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity

  PL

  Paradise Lost

  PR

  Paradise Regained

  Q Nov

  In Quintum Novembris

  RCG

  Reason of Church Government

  REW

  Ready and Easy Way

  SA

  Samson Agonistes

  TKM

  Tenure of Kings and Magistrates

  YP

  The Complete Prose Works of John Milton, edited by Don M. Wolfe et al., 8 vols. (New Haven, 1953–82)

  The following abbreviations are of works by other authors:

  Ariosto, Orl. Fur.

  Orlando Furioso

  Boiardo, Orl. Inn.

  Orlando Innamorato

  Claudian, De Rapt. Pros.

  De Raptu Proserpinae

  Dante, Inf., Purg., Par.

  Inferno, Purgatorio, Paradiso

  Fletcher, CV

  Christs Victorie, and Triumph

  Hesiod, Theog., WD

  Theogony, Works and Days

  Homer, Il., Od.

  Iliad, Odyssey

  Lucretius, De Rerum Nat.

  De Rerum Natura

  Ovid, Her., Met.

  Heroides, Metamorphoses

  Spenser, FQ, Shep. Cal.

  Faerie Queene, Shepheardes Calender

  Sylvester, DWW

  Joshuah Sylvester, The Divine Weeks and Works of Guillaume de Saluste, Sieur du Bartas

  Tasso, Gerus. Lib.

  Gerusalemme Liberata

  Virgil, Aen., Ecl., Georg.

  Aeneid, Eclogues, Georgics

  Unless otherwise stated, all biblical citations are from the Authorized Version (A.V.). LXX refers to the Septuagint (the Greek version of the Old Testament (O.T.)) and Junius-Tremellius refers to Testamenti Veteris Biblia Sacra (1581), the Protestant Latin version of the O.T. by Franciscus Junius and Immanuel Tremellius.

  Abbreviations of academic journals used are:

  CLS

  Comparative Literature Studies

  EC

  Essays in Criticism

  ELH

  A Journal of English Literary History

  ELR

  English Literary Renaissance

  JEGP

  Journal of English and Germanic Philology

  JHI

  Journal of the History of Ideas

  MLN

  Modern Language Notes

  MLR

  Modern Language Review

  MQ

  Milton Quarterly

  MS

  Milton Studies

  N & Q

  Notes and Queries

  PMLA

  Publications of the Modern Language Association of America

  RES

  Review of English Studies

  SEL

  Studies in English Literature

  SP

  Studies in Philology

  UTQ

  University of Toronto Quarterly

  An asterisk signifies that the word or sense so marked is the earliest recorded instance in the Oxford English Dictionary. See Preface, pp. xii–xiii.

  POEMS 1645

  On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity. Composed 1629.

  M. in Elegia VI 88 says that he began this poem before dawn on Christmas Day. His first great (though not his earliest) poem, it is placed first in both 1645 and 1673.

  1. this the happy morn Cp. W. Drummond, Phoebus arise 15: ‘This is that happie Morne’.

  5. holy sages Hebrew prophets. See e.g. Isa. 9. 6.

  6. deadly entailing spiritual death (OED 5).

  forfeit crime (OED 1) and penalty (OED 4).

  release remit a sin (OED 3b) and revoke a sentence (OED 1).

  8. unsufferable unendurable.

  10. wont was wont (the past participle used as a preterite).

  11. trinal unity the Holy Trinity.

  13. everlasting day Cp. Rev. 21. 25 (and 22. 5): ‘there shall be no night there’.

  14. house of mortal clay Cp. Marston, Scourge of Villainy (1598) III viii 194: ‘smoakie house of mortall clay’.

  15. Heav’nly Muse Urania, the Muse of Christian poetry. See PL vii in. vein poetic style and personal disposition.

  16. Afford manage to give.

  19. team horses of the sun’s chariot.

  21. spangled… bright The stars above London in 1629 become the stars and angels that overlooked Christ’s birth.

  23. star-led wizards the Magi.

  odours spices.

  24. prevent anticipate.

  25. blessèd feet Cp. Shakespeare, 1 Henry IVI i 25–7: ‘Those blessed feet / Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed / For our advantage to the bitter cross’.

  28. From… fire In Isa. 6. 6–7 a Seraph touches Isaiah’s lips with a burning coal taken from God’s altar. In RCG (1642), M. says that the Christian poet must pray to ‘that eternall Spirit… who sends out his Seraphim with the hallow’d fire of his Altar to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases’ (YP 1. 821).

  secret set apart.

  33. doffed her gaudy trim ‘removed her gay clothing (of leaves and flowers)’.

  34. sympathize be in accord with.

  35. season both ‘time of the year’ and ‘fit occasion’ (OED 14).

  36. wanton sport amorously. Cp. the earth’s lust for the sun in Elegia V 55–95.

  paramour lover.

  38. woos both ‘entreats’ and ‘solicits alluringly’.

  39–40. To hide… naked shame Cp. Adam and Eve’s shame after their Fall (Gen. 3. 7–10, PL ix 1079–98). Man’s sin makes Nature guilty (cp. PL x 649f.).

  39. front face (OED 1).

  41. Pollute polluted.

  43. Confounded ashamed (OED 3).

  45. cease The transitive usage was idiomatic (OED 5).

  46–60. Peace prevailed over the Roman world at the time of Christ’s birth. Church Fathers (e.g. Augustine, City of God xviii 46) saw this as a fulfilment of O.T. prophecies. See also Dante, Par. vi 55–7 and Tasso, Canzone 58f.

  47. olive an emblem of peace.

  48. turning sphere the firmament (outermost of the Ptolemaic spheres), which revolved daily around the earth.

  49. harbinger forerunner (OED 3). The other sense, ‘one sent before a lord to commandeer a lodging’ (OED 2), is also relevant to the Lord who found no room at the inn. ‘Harbinger’ is cognate with French auberge.

  50. turtle turtle dove. Cp. Jonson’s ‘turtle-footed peace’ (Every Man Out of His Humour Ep. 27–8).

  amorous loving (towards Peace).

  51. myrtle an attribute of Venus, goddess of love. The wand also suggests a harbinger’s wand of office.

  53. No war, or battle’s sound Cp. Spenser on Saturn’s reign (FQ V, proem 9): ‘No warre was knowne, no dreadfull trompets sound’.

  56. hookèd armed with scythes. Cp. FQ V viii 28: ‘a charret hye, / With yron wheeles and hookes arm’d dreadfully’.

  59. awful filled with awe, reverential.

  64. whist hushed, still.

  68. birds of calm halcyons (kingfishers). Classical writers believed that the sea remained calm during the few days around the winter solstice when halcyons laid their eggs and sat brooding on their floating nests.

  71. influence an ethereal fluid streaming from stars and planets and acting on the character and destiny of men. Cp. PL iv 667–73, vii 375, viii 513, ix 105–6, x 662, etc.

  74. Lucifer the morning star, Venus. This Lucifer dut
ifully dismisses the stars, but ‘Lucifer’ was also a name for Satan, who would wish ‘that stars and men pay as little attention to the great event as possible’ (Brooks and Hardy 98). Cp. Lucifer-Satan leading his stellar angels from God’s throne (PL v 704–10, 755–60).

  75. orbs the concentric hollow spheres which carried stars and planets around the earth in the Ptolemaic cosmology.

  76. bespake spoke out, perhaps ‘with some notion of objection or remonstrance’ (OED 2). Cp. Lycidas 112.

  77. gloom *darkness (OED sb1 2).

  79–83. sun… greater Sun Cp. the Nativity scene in Fletcher, CV (1610) i 78: ‘heav’n awaked with all his eyes, / To see another Sunne, at midnight rise’. Cp. also the sun’s awe of Elizabeth in Spenser, Shep. Cal. April 77: ‘He blusht to see another Sunne belowe’. M.’s pun on ‘Son’ has a biblical source in Malachi 4. 2. Cp. PL iv 37.

  81. As as if.

  84. axle-tree axle of the sun’s chariot. Cp. the sun’s ‘burning axle-tree’ in George Chapman, Bussy D’Ambois (1607) V iii 151–2.

  85. lawn open space between woods.

  86. Or ere Both words mean ‘before’.

  88. then] than 1645, 1673. ‘Than’ and ‘then’ were originally the same word. M. here means ‘then’ but spells ‘than’ for the sake of rhyme.

  89. Pan the Greek god of shepherds – in the Renaissance a symbol of Christ. See E.K.’s gloss to Spenser, Shep. Cal. May 54: ‘Great pan) is Christ, the very God of all shepheards, which calleth himselfe the greate and good shepherd.’ In lines 181–3 M. alludes to a rival tradition which saw Pan as a devil (see 183n below).

  90. kindly both ‘lovingly’ and ‘as one of their kind’. ‘Kind’ could mean ‘birth’, ‘offspring’ or ‘Nature in general’ (OED 1a, 11, 4).

  92. silly simple, rustic, lowly.

  96. warbled *melodiously sung (OED 1).

  97. noise melodious sound (OED 5a).

  98. rapture *ecstasy (OED 5a), with overtones of ‘seizing and carrying off’ (OED 1). Cp. PL vii 36.

  took captivated.

  100. close conclusion of a musical phrase; a cadence.

  102–3. hollow round… seat the sphere of the moon (Cynthia being the moon-goddess Diana). The moon marked a great boundary between Nature below and the heavens above. Nature (the realm of the four elements) was subject to change and decay; the heavens (formed of aether and the quintessence) were pure and unchanging. The Music of the Spheres (see below, 125–32n) was meant to be audible only above the moon; hence Nature’s dismay at hearing it.

  103. airy region the division of the universe (OED ‘region’ 3a) between the earth and the moon.

  thrilling piercing (OED 4), delighting (OED 5).

  104. won persuaded (OED 9), with overtones of ‘delivered, redeemed’ (OED 8), alluding to the Fall.

  110. globe troop (Latin globus) and sphere (notice circular). Cp. PL ii 512 and PR iv 581–2.

  111. shame-faced modest (OED 1).

  arrayed *adorned (OED 9b), with a play on ‘ray’ (‘beam’).

  112–13. Cherubim… Seraphim According to Pseudo-Dionysius, Seraphim rank highest, and Cherubim second highest, among the nine orders of angels. Seraphim were angels of love, Cherubim were angels of comtemplation and knowledge.

  114. wings displayed Each angel unfolds his wings, and the whole host is deployed (OED ‘display’ 1b) like the wings of an army. Notice ranks and cp. PL vi 778.

  115. choir There may be a pun on *‘order of angels’ (OED 4, earliest instance 1642). Cp. PL iii 666.

  116. unexpressive inexpressible; coined by Shakespeare in As You Like It III ii 10. Cp. Lycidas 176.

  119–23. sons of morning… foundations Cp. God’s question at Job 38. 4–7: ‘Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth… When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?’ Cp. also Ps. 102. 25: ‘Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth’, and Isa. 14. 12: ‘Lucifer, son of the morning’.

  122. hinges the two poles making the earth’s axis (OED 3). Cp. Spenser, FQ I xi 21: ‘To move the world from off his steadfast henge’. Cp. also Job 26.7: ‘He… hangeth the earth upon nothing’. ‘Hinge’ derives from ‘hang’.

  124. welt’ring rolling.

  125–32. Ring… symphony the Pythagorean notion of the Music of the Spheres. Each sphere of the universe was thought to produce a note as it revolved around the earth. The resulting music was inaudible on earth (since the Fall), but a sinless soul might hear it. Cp. Arcades 62–73, Solemn Music 19–24, A Masque 1020–21, PL v 178, M.’s prose Prolusion ii (YP 1. 234–9); also Plato, Republic x 616–17 and Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice V i 60–65.

  126. Once only.

  130. the base the earth as base of the universe; with a play on ‘ground bass’. The seventeenth-century organ (a traditional image for universal harmony) played ‘ground bass’ beneath the varied harmony of other instruments. The earth will play ‘ground bass’ under the spheres.

  131. ninefold harmony Cp. Arcades 64 (‘nine infolded spheres’). Plato has eight spheres (Republic x 617–18); M. in PL iii 481–3 has ten. Dante has nine and relates them to the nine angelic orders (Par. xxviii 25–78). Here the ninefold harmony may consist of eight spheres plus the earth, whose bass note is needed if our universe is to Make up full consort to the nine angelic orders.

  132. consort accord or harmony of several voices or instruments playing or singing in tune (OED 3a), company of musicians (OED 4), fellowship (OED 1)

  135. age of gold Cp. Virgil’s famous prophecy of the birth of a boy who will restore the Golden Age (Ecl. iv 6–10). Early Christians (e.g. Augustine, City of God x 27) read this ‘Messianic’ eclogue as a prophecy of Christ. Lactantius also speaks of Christ as restoring the Golden Age (Divine Institutes V vii).

  136. speckled spotted (perhaps suggesting the plague).

  138. lep’rous Sin Cp. Sylvester, DWW (1592–1608), The Fathers (1605): ‘The Leprosie of our contagious sinne’ (518).

  mould the whole earth and the clay from which man was made. Cp. A Masque 17, Arcades 73.

  140. *peering OED’s earliest participial instance, meaning both ‘looking narrowly’ and ‘just appearing’. Hell shrinks from daylight in Homer, II. xx 61–4 and Virgil, Aen. viii 243–6. Cp. also A Masque 732–6.

  141–4. Truth… Mercy Cp. Ps. 85. 10: ‘Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other’. The ‘righteousness’ of the A.V. is justitia in the Vulgate. A medieval and Renaissance allegorical tradition made Truth, Justice and Mercy three of the four daughters of God. The fourth daughter was Peace (see line 46).

  142. down return Astraea, goddess of Justice, lived among men during the Golden Age, but later fled the earth (Ovid, Met. i 150). Virgil announces her return in his ‘Messianic’ eclogue (iv 6). Lactantius says that Astraea returned with the coming of Christ (Divine Institutes V v-vii).

  143–4. Orbed… between] 1673; Th’ enamelled arras of the rainbow wearing, / And Mercy set between 1645. Cp. Rev. 4. 3: ‘there was a rainbow round about the throne’, and Gen. 9. 13.

  enamelled arras brightly coloured fabric.

  146. tissued woven with gold or silver thread (OED 1).

  149. Fate that which God has willed or spoken (Latin fari, ‘to speak’). Cp. PL vii 131.

  151. infancy Brooks and Hardy (100) note the play on Latin infans, ‘unspeaking’, and cite a sermon by Lancelot Andrewes (Christmas 1618): ‘An infant; Verbum infans, the Word without a word, the aeternall Word not able to speak a word’. Cp. also Fletcher, CV (1610) i 79.

  152. bitter cross See above, 25n.

  155. ychained Spenserian archaism.

  sleep death.

  156. wakeful *rousing (OED 6, sole instance).

  trump trumpet.

  doom Judgement. Cp. Matt. 24. 31, 1 Cor. 15. 51–2.

  157. clang sound of a trumpet (Latin, clangor).

  158. As on Mount Sinai Exod. 19. 16–18.

  164. middle air Christ was ex
pected to appear in the clouds (Dan. 7. 13, Matt. 24. 30, 1 Thess. 4. 17), which occupied the second of three ‘regions’ of the air.

  166. perfect including ‘complete’ (OED 3).

  168. Th’ old Dragon Cp. Rev. 20. 2: ‘the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan’.

  169. straiter narrower.

  170. casts extends, throws (like a net).

  172. Swinges lashes. Pronounce with a soft ‘g’ as in ‘hinges’.

  173–228. See PL i 373n for the patristic belief (still current in 1629) that pagan gods were fallen angels. Tuve (62–72) rejects that identification here. She argues that the hymn’s false gods are not devils, but fictions, which ‘is why some of them are lovely’. But fictions would not be a damnèd crew (228), or dread Christ (222) or flee to Hell.

  173. The oracles are dumb Cp. Fletcher, CV (1610) i 82: ‘The cursed Oracles were strucken dumb’. An ancient tradition held that pagan oracles ceased with the coming of Christ. Cp. PR i 456–64 and see Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica v 16. Lines 173–80 share many details with Prudentius’s poem Apotheosis 402–43.

  175. words deceiving The Delphic oracle was notorious for its treacherous ambiguity. See PR i 430–41.

  178. Delphos Delphi.

  179–80. breathèd… Inspires The Romans thought that Apollo’s priestess at Delphi had breathed in (was literally inspired by) intoxicating vapours rising from the earth.

  180. cell the innermost part of a temple, where the god’s idol stood (Latin cella).

  181. lonely *unfrequented, desolate (OED 3).

  183. A voice of weeping Cp. Matt. 2. 18 (the slaughter of the innocents): ‘In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation and weeping’. Cp. also Plutarch’s story of a ship’s pilot sailing past the isle of Paxi. A voice from Paxi told the pilot to proclaim ‘great Pan is dead’ when he reached Pelodes. He did so, and at once heard many voices weeping (De Defectu Oraculorum xvii). Eusebius cites Plutarch in Praeparatio Evangelica v 17, and notes that the event occurred when Christ was banishing devils. He identifies Pan as a devil. Others identified Pan as the crucified Christ (see above, 89n). M. had identified Pan with Christ in line 89, but now implies that he was a devil.