CYRANO DE BERGERAC, Edmond Rostand, 978-0-553-21360-7
IVANHOE, Sir Walter Scott, 978-0-553-21326-3
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEARE (29 vols.), William Shakespeare
PYGMALION and MAJOR BARBARA, George Bernard Shaw, 978-0-553-21408-6
FRANKENSTEIN, Mary Shelley, 978-0-553-21247-1
THE JUNGLE, Upton Sinclair, 978-0-553-21245-7
THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, Adam Smith, 978-0-553-58597-1
ONE DAY IN THE LIFE OF IVAN DENISOVICH, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, 978-0-553-24777-0
THE COMPLETE PLAYS OF SOPHOCLES, Sophocles, 978-0-553-21354-6
DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE, Robert Louis Stevenson, 978-0-553-21277-8
KIDNAPPED, Robert Louis Stevenson, 978-0-553-21260-0
TREASURE ISLAND, Robert Louis Stevenson, 978-0-553-21249-5
DRACULA, Bram Stoker, 978-0-553-21271-6
UNCLE TOM’S CABIN, Harriet Beecher Stowe, 978-0-553-21218-1
GULLIVER’S TRAVELS AND OTHER WRITINGS, Jonathan Swift, 978-0-553-21232-7
VANITY FAIR, William Makepeace Thackeray, 978-0-553-21462-8
WALDEN AND OTHER WRITINGS, Henry David Thoreau, 978-0-553-21246-4
DEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, Alexis de Tocqueville, 978-0-553-21464-2
ANNA KARENINA, Leo Tolstoy, 978-0-553-21346-1
THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH, Leo Tolstoy, 978-0-553-21035-4
THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, Mark Twain, 978-0-553-21079-8
THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER, Mark Twain, 978-0-553-21128-3
THE COMPLETE SHORT STORIES OF MARK TWAIN, Mark Twain, 978-0-553-21195-5
A CONNECTICUT YANKEE IN KING ARTHUR’S COURT, Mark Twain, 978-0-553-21143-6
LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI, Mark Twain, 978-0-553-21349-2
THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER, Mark Twain, 978-0-553-21256-3
PUDD’NHEAD WILSON, Mark Twain, 978-0-553-21158-0
20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, Jules Verne, 978-0-553-21252-5
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS, Jules Verne, 978-0-553-21356-0
FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON, Jules Verne, 978-0-553-21420-8
THE AENEID OF VIRGIL, Virgil, 978-0-553-21041-5
CANDIDE, Voltaire, 978-0-553-21166-5
THE INVISIBLE MAN, H. G. Wells, 978-0-553-21353-9
THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU, H. G. Wells, 978-0-553-21432-1
THE TIME MACHINE, H. G. Wells, 978-0-553-21351-5
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, H. G. Wells, 978-0-553-21338-6
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE, Edith Wharton, 978-0-553-21450-5
THE CUSTOM OF THE COUNTRY, Edith Wharton, 978-0-553-21393-5
ETHAN FROME AND OTHER SHORT FICTION, Edith Wharton, 978-0-553-21255-6
THE HOUSE OF MIRTH, Edith Wharton, 978-0-553-21320-1
SUMMER, Edith Wharton, 978-0-553-21422-2
LEAVES OF GRASS, Walt Whitman, 978-0-553-21116-0
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY AND OTHER WRITINGS, Oscar Wilde, 978-0-553-21254-9
THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, Johann David Wyss, 978-0-553-21403-1
EARLY AFRICAN-AMERICAN CLASSICS, edited by Anthony Appiah, 978-0-553-21379-9
FIFTY GREAT SHORT STORIES, edited by Milton Crane, 978-0-553-27745-6
FIFTY GREAT AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, edited by Milton Crane, 978-0-553-27294-9
SHORT SHORTS, edited by Irving Howe, 978-0-553-27440-0
GREAT AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, edited by Wallace & Mary Stegner, 978-0-440-33060-8
AMERICAN SHORT STORY MASTERPIECES, edited by Raymond Carver & Tom Jenks, 978-0-440-20423-7
SHORT STORY MASTERPIECES, edited by Robert Penn Warren, 978-0-440-37864-8
THE VOICE THAT IS GREAT WITHIN US, edited by Hayden Carruth, 978-0-553-26263-6
THE BLACK POETS, edited by Dudley Randal, 978-0-553-27563-6
THREE CENTURIES OF AMERICAN POETRY, edited by Allen Mandelbaum, (Trade) 978-0-553-37518-3, (Hardcover) 978-0-553-10250-5
JOHN MILTON was born on December 9, 1608. A brilliant scholar, he received his B.A. and M.A. from Christ’s College, Cambridge, and began writing poetry. Instead of entering the ministry, he retired to his father’s country house and for the next five years read day and night, devouring most of the existing written works in English, Greek, Latin, and Italian. During this period he wrote the masque Comus (1634) and “Lycidas” (1637), an elegy memorializing a college classmate. In 1638 he went on a tour of Europe, spending most of his time in Italy. He returned home prematurely because of the religious unrest in England and began writing tracts that branded him a radical. In 1642 he married Mary Powell, a seventeen-year-old girl. Within six weeks, she returned to her parents’ home, and Milton wrote a series of angry pamphlets advocating divorce on the grounds of incompatibility. Eventually, she returned and bore him four children, three of whom survived. By 1651 Milton’s poor eyesight failed completely, leaving him blind. After his wife’s death, he remarried, only to have his second wife die some months after childbirth. His third marriage, to Elizabeth Minshull, was a longer and happier one. At the Restoration, Milton narrowly escaped execution because of his politics, but was left impoverished. Now he returned to writing poetry and created the masterpieces for which he will be forever remembered, beginning with Paradise Lost (1667). He followed this epic with Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes (jointly published in 1671). Milton died in 1674. Along with Chaucer and Shakespeare, Milton is one of the true giants of our language.
THE ANNOTATED MILTON
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam Classic edition published September 1999
Bantam Classic reissue / December 2008
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Translation copyright © 1999 by Burton Raffel
* * *
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
* * *
eISBN: 978-0-553-90582-3
www.bantamdell.com
v1.0
FOOTNOTES
1 celestial
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2 hardness
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3 Italian: Galileo
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4 practical scientist, learned man
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5 discover, make known
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6 spotted, patchy
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7 admiral’s ship, flagship
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8 straight slender stick
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9 difficult, troublesome
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10 soil
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1111 beat/shone strongly
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12 covered, roofed
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13 talked idly, lied about
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14 steeply, perpendicularly
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15 fortifications placed on top of walls
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16 directly overhead
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17 unpolished, rough
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18 streams
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19 reeds, pipes, flutes
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20 pastoral
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21 extended across
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22 pulled around him
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23 Terah = Abraham’s father
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24 Egyptian
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25 i.e., the sea saw the strength of the Almighty’s hand
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26 cowardly
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27 army
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28 defeat
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29 always, forever
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30 who
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31 streams, brooks
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32 proclaim
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33 widely, at large
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34 destroy, kill, overcome
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35 brightly colored
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36 greatness, power, dignity
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37 cruel, terrible, savage [adjective]
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38 the Hebrew people
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39 the Red Sea
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40 brown-skinned
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41 desolate
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42 the Amorites, pre-Israelite dwellers in Canaan
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43 Amorite king, and an exceedingly large man
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44 excessively bold, daring
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45 Jacob
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46 to sing, celebrate in song
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47 blossomed
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48 withered
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49 color vermilion
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50 the north wind (Aquilo = “eagle”)
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51 winter’s
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52 rough, coarse, violent
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53 Orythia, daughter of the king of Athens
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54 affected injuriously
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55 i.e., unless he too wedded some fair one
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56 notorious
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57 maturity, old age
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58 frisky, sportive
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59 carriage, chariot
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60 dwelling
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61 shamed, disgraced
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62 unknowing, unwitting
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63 once
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64 Zephyr, the west wind, also loved Hyacinth, and in revenge caused a quoit (iron ring thrown at a peg in the ground) thrown by Apollo to swerve, hit, and kill Hyacinth
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65 Eurotas = Laconian river; strand = bank, shore
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66 shallowly dug? or an in-ground grave rather than a properly elevated tomb structure?
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67 explain, clarify
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68 verses, poem
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69 creature, being
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70 benefit, behalf
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71 appropriate, proper
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72 Astraea (“starry maiden”), goddess of justice and the last god to leave the earth
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73 clothing
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74 travel quickly
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75 dirty, repulsive
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76 pain, grief
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77 i.e., in the preceding part, which is a pun-filled “Prolusion”
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78 obvious, bare, plain
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79 suspicion
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80 boxes, chests
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81 thoroughly, all over
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82 Zeus and Hera’s daughter; cupbearer to the gods
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83 layers
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84 old woman, grandmother
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85 see Homer’s Odyssey 8:499ff.
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86 within the boundary
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87 an academic pun: predicament = (1) term used in Aristotelian rhetoric, (2) Milton’s difficulty with his “wand’ring muse”
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88 place
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89 unlucky, disastrous, dreadful
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90 chance, luck
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91 prophetess, fortune-teller, witch
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92 apart
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93 outdistance, surpass
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94 attribute, quality, nature
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95 one George Rivers (or his brother, Nizell) played the part of Relation
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96 outermost
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97 on the border of England and Scotland
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98 the Don, in Yorkshire
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99trente= “thirty,” in French, and the Trent takes its name therefrom
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100 see the story of the river nymph Sabrina in Comus, lines 824ff.
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101 the river runs past Newcastle, proverbial for its coal
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102 i.e., is supposedly named for a Scythian chief who drowned in that river
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103 the Thames, which runs past various royal castles
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104 crime, fault, penalty
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105 unbearable, intolerable
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106 was accustomed
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107 residence/offices of a sovereign
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108 style, talent
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109 effect, accomplish
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110 style, tone
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111 the horses pulling the sun god’s chariot
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112 impression, stamp
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113 the three Magi/wise men
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114 come before [pre= before, venir= come]
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115 poorly, shabbily
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116 rough, coarse, inelegant
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117 feeding trough in stable/barn
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118 reverential wonder
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119 laid aside, taken away, taken off
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120 brilliant, fine
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121 adornment
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122 joyful, lively, lustful
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123 forehead, face
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124 corrupted, foul, filthy, stained [adjective]
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125 abashed, ashamed
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126 forerunner (advance person)
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127 with hook/scythelike protrusions? a hook-shaped chariot?
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128 respectful, reverential
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129 hushed, silent
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130 rage, roar
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131 the morning star, not (in this usage) Satan
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132 place
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133 as if
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134 moment, instant
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135 simple, humble
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136 gripped, seized, charmed (the “stringèd noise” took “all their souls in blissful rapture”)
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137 cadence
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138 the moon
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139 prepared, dressed
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140 inexpressible
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141 rolling, tossing, tumbling
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142 full of moral blemishes/defects
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143 suffering, mourning
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144 houses, tents
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145 similar
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146 delicate, gauzy texture
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147 meeting of a deliberative council [trisyllabic]
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148 fearful, awe-inspiring
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149 narrower, tighter
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150 wrathful, indignant
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151 lashes, brandishes, whips
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152 prognosticate
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153 slope
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154 prompts, animates
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155 silver-leafed?
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156 local spirit (pagan)
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157 Roman household and hearth gods
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158 Roman priests
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159 odd, strange
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160 separate
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161 spiritual/divine being
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162 mountain/Phoenician sun god
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163 followers of Baal
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164 Phoenician moon goddess
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165 encircled
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166 Ammon, Egyptian god with the head of a ram
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167 withers
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168 Phoenician Adonis
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169 deity associated with Baal
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170 into which babies were thrown, as sacrifices to Moloch
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171 animal-like/shaped
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172 Egyptian earth goddess, horned like a cow
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173 Egyptian sun god, Isis’ son
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174 son of Orus, dog/ jackal-headed
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175 chief of the Egyptian gods, portrayed as a black bull
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176 see line 220, below
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177 percussion instrument, tambourinelike
The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Page 76
