by John Milton
Ille quidem est animæ plusquam pars altera nostræ,
20
Dimidio vitæ vivere cogor ego.
Hei mihi, quot pelagi, quot montes interjecti
Me faciunt aliâ parte carere mei!
Charior ille mihi quam tu, doctissime Graium,
Cliniadi,7 pronepos qui Telamonis erat;
25
Quámque Stagirites8 generoso magnus alumno,
Quem peperit Libyco Chaonis alma Jovi.
Qualis Amyntorides, qualis Philyrëius Heros
Myrmidonum regi,9 talis et ille mihi.
Primus ego Aonios illo præeunte recessus
30
Lustrabam, et bifidi sacra vireta jugi,10
Pieriosque hausi latices, Clioque favente,
Castalio sparsi læta ter ora mero.
Flammeus at signum ter viderat arietis Æthon,
Induxitque auro lanea terga novo,
35
Bisque novo terram sparsisti, Chlori, senilem
Gramine, bisque tuas abstulit Auster opes:
Necdum ejus licuit mihi lumina pascere vultu,
Aut linguæ dulces aure bibisse sonos.11
Vade igitur, cursuque Eurum12 præverte sonorum,
40
Quàm sit opus monitis res docet, ipsa vides.
Invenies dulci cum conjuge forte sedentem,
Mulcentem gremio pignora chara suo,
Forsitan aut veterum prælarga vohimina patrum
Versantem, aut veri biblia sacra Dei,
45
Cælestive animas saturantem rore tenellas,
Grande salutiferæ religionis opus.
Utque solet, multam sit dicere cura salutem,
Dicere quam decuit, si modo adesset, herum.
Hæc quoque paulum oculos in humum defixa modestos,
50
Verba verecundo sis memor ore loqui:
Hæc tibi, si teneris vacat inter prælia13 Musis,
Mittit ab Angliaco littore fida manus.
Accipe sinceram, quamvis sit sera, salutem
Fiat et hoc ipso gratior illa tibi.
55
Sera quidem, sed vera fuit, quam casta recepit
Icaris a lento Penelopeia viro.14
Ast ego quid volui manifestum tollere crimen,
Ipse quod ex omni parte levare nequit?
Arguitur tardus meritò, noxamque fatetur,
60
Et pudet officium deseruisse suum.
Tu modò da veniam fasso, veniamque roganti,
Crimina diminui, quæ patuere, solent.
Non ferus in pavidos rictus diducit hiantes,
Vulnifico pronos nec rapit ungue leo.
65
Sæpe sarissiferi crudelia pectora Thracis15
Supplicis ad mœstas delicuere preces.
Extensæque manus avertunt fulminis ictus,
Placat et iratos hostia parva Deos.
Jamque diu scripsisse tibi fuit impetus illi,
70
Neve moras ultra ducere passus Amor.
Nam vaga Fama refert, heu nuntia vera malorum!
In tibi finitimis bella tumere locis,
Teque tuàmque urbem truculento milite cingi,
Et jam Saxonicos arma parasse duces.
75
Te circum latè campos populatur Enyo,
Et sata carne virum jam cruor arva rigat.
Germanisque suum concessit Thracia Martem,
Illuc Odrysios Mars pater egit equos.
Perpetuóque comans jam deflorescit oliva,
80
Fugit et ærisonam Diva16 perosa tubam,
Fugit io terris, et jam non ultima virgo
Creditur ad superas justa volasse domos.
Te tamen intereà belli circumsonat horror,
Vivis et ignoto solus inópsque solo;
85
Et, tibi quam patrii non exhibuere penates
Sede peregrinâ quæris egenus opem.
Patria, dura parens, et saxis sævior albis
Spumea quæ pulsat littoris unda tui,
Siccine te decet innocuous exponere fœtus,
90
Siccine in externam ferrea cogis humum,
Et sinis ut terris quærant alimenta remotis
Quos tibi prospiciens miserat ipse Deus,
Et qui læta ferunt de cælo nuntia, quique
Quæ via post cineres ducat ad astra, docent?17
95
Digna quidem Stygiis quæ vivas clausa tenebris,
Æternâque animæ digna perire fame!
Haud aliter vates terræ Thesbitidis18 olim
Pressit inassueto devia tesqua pede,
Desertasque Arabum salebras, dum regis Achabi
100
Effugit atque tuas, Sidoni dira, manus.
Talis et horrisono laceratus membra flagello,
Paulus19 ab Æmathiâ pellitur urbe Cilix.
Piscosæque ipsum Gergessæ civis Jësum
Finibus ingratus jussit abire suis.20
105
At tu sume animos, nec spes cadat anxia curis
Nec tua concutiat decolor ossa metus.
Sis etenim quamvis fulgentibus obsitus armis,
Intententque tibi millia tela necem,
At nullis vel inerme latus violabitur armis,
110
Deque tuo cuspis nulla cruore bibet.
Namque eris ipse Dei radiante sub ægide21 tutus,
Ille tibi custos, et pugil ille tibi;
Ille Sionææ qui tot sub mœnibus arcis
Assyrios fudit nocte silente viros;22
115
Inque fugam vertit quos in Samaritidas oras
Misit ab antiquis prisca Damascus agris,23
Terruit et densas pavido cum rege cohortes,
Aëre dum vacuo buccina clara sonat,
Cornea pulvereum dum verberat ungula campum,
120
Currus arenosam dum quatit actus humum,
Auditurque hinnitus equorum ad bella ruentûm,
Et strepitus ferri, murmuraque alta virûm.
Et tu (quod superest miseris) sperare memento,
Et tua magnanimo pectore vince mala.
125
Nec dubites quandoque frui melioribus annis,
Atque iterum patrios posse videre lares.
Elegy 4
TO THOMAS YOUNG, HIS TUTOR, DISCHARGING THE DUTY OF PASTOR AMONG THE ENGLISH MERCHANTS IN BUSINESS IN HAMBURG1
Quickly, my letter, run through the boundless deep; / go, seek Teutonic lands through the smooth sea; / break off dilatory delays, and let nothing, I pray, thwart your voyage, / and let nothing obstruct the path of your hastening. / I myself Aeolus2 bridling the winds in his Sicanian cave [5] / will exhort, and the vigorous gods, / and cerulian Doris, attended by her nymphs,3 / to give you a peaceful journey through their realms. / But you, if you are able, arrogate for yourself the swift team, / borne by which the Colchian4 fled from the face of her husband, [10] / or that by which Triptolemus5 reached the Scythian borders, / the beloved boy sent from the Eleusinian city. / But when you see the German sands become golden, / turn your steps to the walls of affluent Hamburg, / which is said to derive its name from slain Hama,6 [15] / who it is told was brought to violent death by a Cimbrian club. / Here, renowned for his honor of the primitive faith, lives / a minister well-versed in feeding the sheep that worship Christ; / he, truly, is more than the other half of my soul: / I am constrained to live but half of my life without him. [20] / Alas for me, how many seas, how many mountains intervening / render me cut off from the other half of myself! / Dearer to me is he than you, most learned of Greeks, / to Cliniades,7 who was the great-grandson of Telamon; / than the lofty Stagirite8 to his noble pupil [25] / whom the genial daughter of Chaonia bore to Libyan Jove. / What the son of Amyntor, what the heroic son of Philyra / were to the king of the Myrmidons,9 such is he to me. / I first surveyed the Aonian retreats through his guiding, / and the sacred lawns of the twin-peaked mountain,10 [30] / and the Pierian water
I drank, and by favor of Clio, / I thrice moistened my happy lips with pure Castalian wine. / But thrice has fiery Aethon seen the sign of the ram, / and overspread his woolly back with new gold, / and twice, Chloris, have you bestrewn the old earth with new [35] / grass, and twice Auster removed your wealth; / and yet I have not been allowed to feast my eyes on his countenance / or the sweet sounds of his speech to be drunk in by my ears.11 / Speed, therefore, and outrun noisy Eurus12 by your course. / How great is the need of my admonitions, circumstance shows; you yourself perceive. [40] / Perhaps you will find him sitting with his sweet wife, / stroking their dear children on his lap; / or perhaps meditating the copious volumes of the old fathers, / or the Holy Bible of the true God, / saturating the delicate souls with celestial dew, [45] / the sublime work of health-bearing religion. / As is the custom, be careful to deliver a hearty greeting, / to speak as would befit your master, if only he were present. / May you be mindful to cast your discreet eyes down a little on the ground / and to speak these words with modest mouth: [50] / These verses to you, if there is time for the delicate Muses between battles,13 / a devoted hand sends from the English shore. / Accept this sincere wish for your welfare, though it be late, / and may it be the more pleasing to you for that reason. / Late indeed, but genuine it was as that which [55] / the chaste Penelope, daughter of Icarius, received from her dilatory husband.14 / But why did I consent to cancel a manifest fault / which he himself is utterly unable to discharge? / He is justly reproved as tardy, and confesses his offence, / and is ashamed to have forsaken his duty. [60] / Do only you grant forgiveness to him confessed, and to him begging forgiveness; / crimes which lie exposed are wont to be destroyed. / No beast separates its jaws in fearful openings, / nor does the lion tear those lying prone with his wounding claw. / Often the cruel hearts of Thracian15 lance-bearers [65] / have melted at the melancholy pleas of a suppliant, / and extended hands avert the stroke of the thunderbolt, / and a small sacrifice pacifies the angry gods. / Now for a long while was there the impulse to write to you in that place, / and love would not endure to suffer further delays; [70] / for wandering rumor imparts—alas the truthful messager of calamities— / that in places neighboring upon you wars burst forth, / that you and your city are surrounded by fierce troops, / and that now the Saxon leaders have procured arms. / Everywhere around you Enyo is devastating the fields, [75] / and now blood soaks the land sown with the flesh of men. / And Thrace has yielded its Mars to the Germans; / father Mars has driven his Odrysian horses thither. / And now the ever-crested olive fades, / and the goddess16 detesting the brazen-sounding trumpet has fled, [80] / look, has fled the earth, and now it is believed / the just maid was not the last to fly to the mansions on high. / Nevertheless in the meanwhile the horror of war resounds around you, / and you live alone and destitute on the unfamiliar soil; / and in your foreign residence, indigent, you seek the sustenance [85] / which the hearth of your forefathers does not tender you. / Fatherland, hard parent, and more cruel than the white cliffs / which the spuming wave of your coast beats, / do you think it right thus to expose your innocent children? / To a strange soil thus do you drive them with hard-heartedness? [90] / and do you suffer them to seek livelihood in remote lands / whom provident God himself has sent to you, / and who bring joyous messages from heaven, and who / teach the way which leads beyond the grave to the stars?17 / Indeed, deservedly, may you, O Fatherland, live enclosed in Stygian darkness, [95] / and deservedly perish by the eternal hunger of the soul! / Just as the Tishbite prophet18 in days gone by / walked the lonely deserts of the earth with unaccustomed step / and the harsh wastes of Arabia, when he fled / from the hands of King Ahab and yours, Sidonian Fury, [100] / and in such fashion, with limbs lacerated by the dreadful-sounding whip, / was Cilician Paul19 driven from the Emathian city; / and the ungrateful citizen of fishy Gergessa / bade Jesus himself depart from his coasts.20 / But you, my tutor, take heart; let not your anxious hope fall from griefs, [105] / nor pale dread terrify your bones. / Although you may be covered over by shining arms / and a thousand spears threaten you with death, / assuredly your unarmed side shall not be violated by any weapon / and no lance will drink your blood. [110] / For you yourself will be safe under the radiant aegis of God.21 / He will be guardian to you, and he will be champion to you; / he who under the walls of Sion’s fortress / vanquished so many Assyrian soldiers in the silent night,22 / and turned in flight those whom venerable Damascus [115] / sent to the borders of Samaria from her ancient plains,23 / and affrighted the thronging cohorts with their terrified king / when the glorious trumpet sounded in the empty air, / when the horny hoof scourged the dusty plain, / when the driven chariot shook the sandy ground, [120] / and the neighing of horses rushing into battle was heard, / and the clanking of iron swords, and the deep roar of men. / And you (because it still remains for the sick at heart) remember to hope / and conquer these misfortunes by your magnanimous heart. / And do not doubt at one time or other to enjoy more fortunate years [125] / and to be able to see again your native home.
(Mar. ? 1627)
* * *
1 Young (1587?–1655) was Milton’s tutor in 1618–20(?). By 1620 he was in Hamburg, visiting England in Mar.–July 1621 and again sometime in Jan.–Apr. 1625 (see ll. 33–38); he returned sometime between Jan. and Mar. 1628. On Mar. 27, 1628, he became vicar of St. Peter and St. Mary in Stowmarket, Suffolk. Familiar Letter 1 was written Mar. 26, 1627, to accompany this elegy, which it mentions; a further letter (No. 4), dated July 21, 1628, also survives. Young was the “TY” of “SMECTYMNUUS,” the composite name of the five divines who in 1641 attacked episcopacy with An Answer to a Book entituled “An Humble Remonstrance,” to which was added A Postscript, probably written by Milton (see Wolfe, Yale Prose, I, 961–65). Barker (MLR, XXXII, 1937, 517-26) suggests that Young was the friend to whom Of Reformation was written, and Parker (TLS, May 16, 1936, p. 420) believes him the unknown friend of the letter in TM.
2 god of the winds; the land of the Sicanians was Sicily.
3 Wife of the river-god Nereus, Doris was the mother of fifty sea-nymphs.
4 Medea fled from Jason in a chariot drawn by dragons, after murdering their children.
5 a son of Celeus, king of Eleusis, whom Ceres sent in her dragon-drawn chariot to sow wheat throughout the earth (including far Scythia). Ovid likewise wished for the chariots of Medea and Triptolemus to return him from exile (Tristia, III, viii, 1–4).
6 D. T. Starnes (A Tribute to G. C. Taylor, 1952, p. 39) shows that Milton could have learned this legend from entries in Charles Stephanus’ Dictionarium. Hama was a Saxon champion reputedly killed by Starchatar, a Danish (Cimbrian) giant.
7 Alcibiades; one of Plato’s dialogues bears his name.
8 Aristotle, born in Stagira in Macedonia. His famous pupil was Alexander the Great, son of Olympias (of Chaonia in Epirus) and, in legend, of Ammon, as Jove was known in Libya.
9 Achilles, pupil of Phoenix (son of Amyntor) and Chiron (son of Philyra).
10 Mt. Parnassus, the haunt of the Muses, in Aonia. The waters that flowed in Castalia, a spring on Mt. Parnassus, afforded poetic inspiration by the bestowal of the Muses, who were born in Pieria. The Muse Clio, as Simonides tells us (Frag. 56), was the “overseer of the pure lustration-water, receiver of the prayers of many a pitcher-carrier.” What Milton says is that Young introduced him to the glories of the arts, and that, while under Young’s guidance and as a result of the talents given him by Clio, he had thrice been poetically inspired. These early poems are apparently not extant.
11 Because Aethon, one of the sun’s horses, has entered the zodiacal sign of the Ram (Mar. 21–Apr. 19) three times and because Chloris, goddess of flowers here signifying spring, and Auster, the south wind here signifying autumn, have visited the earth twice, Milton must not have seen Young since early 1625.
12 the east wind, named because Milton was writing to Germany at the time of year that it blows.
13 The conflicts of the Thirty Years’ War threatened
Hamburg particularly after Christian IV of Denmark (a Protestant leader) was defeated by Tilly, general of the Catholic Holy League, in Western Germany on Aug. 27, 1626. See also ll. 71-76, where reference is made to Bernard, William, and Frederick, Dukes of Saxe-Weimar, who were preparing attacks against Tilly and Wallenstein. Hamburg tried to remain neutral. Enyo (l. 75), a goddess of war, was noted for destruction of cities.
14 Ulysses, disguised, revealed himself to his wife Penelope several days after his return from the Trojan War and his ensuing travels.
15 Thrace (Odrysia, l. 78) was the home of Mars.
16 Astraea; see Fair Infant, n. 9. The olive (l. 79) is the symbol of peace; it and truth are meant as perhaps forsaking earth later than justice.
17 Lines 87-94 allude to the probable reason for Young’s removal to Hamburg: the requirement that ministers subscribe not only to articles concerning faith and the sacraments in the Thirty-nine Articles, but also to those concerning rites and ceremonies. The “you” of l. 95 are those church and governmental officials responsible for Young’s exile.
18 Elijah, who fled into the wilderness from the anger of Ahab’s wife Jezebel, daughter of the king of Sidon (1 Kings xix. 1-4).
19 Paul, who came from Tarsus in Cilicia, was beaten by the multitude of Philippi in Macedonia, or Emathia (Acts xvi. 22-23).
20 Matt. viii. 28-34 relates how Jesus cast out the devils of two possessed only to have the citizens seek his departure because their swine had perished along with the devils.
21 Though Milton refers to Young’s ministry under the Christian God, he fuses with it the pagan image of Jove’s protective shield, borne by Athena, with its Gorgon head warding off all attackers.
22 the routing of Sennacherib and his Assyrian host at Jerusalem by the angel of God (2 Kings xix. 35).
23 The besieging of Samaria by the Damascans under Ben-Hadad is told in 1 and 2 Kings; the flight here described is found in 2 Kings vii. 6-7.
