The Complete Poetry of John Milton (48 page)
Read The Complete Poetry of John Milton Online
Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
55
Quæstorque gazæ nobilioris,
Quàm cui præfuit Iön
Clarus Erechtheides
Opulenta dei per templa parentis
9
Fulvosque tripodas, donaque Delphica,
60
Iön Actæâ genitus Creüsâ.
ANTISTROPHE
Ergo tu visere lucos
Musarum ibis amœnos,
Diamque Phœbi rursùs ibis in domum
Oxoniâ quam valle colit
65
Delo posthabitâ,
Bifidóque Parnassi jugo:
Ibis honestus,
Postquam egregiam tu quoque sortem
Nactus abis, dextri prece sollicitatus amici.
70
Illic legéris inter alta nomina
Authorum, Graiæ simul et Latinæ
Antiqua gentis lumina, et verum decus.
EPODOS
Vos tandem haud vacui mei labores,
Quicquid hoc sterile fudit ingenium.
75
Jam serò placidam sperare jubeo
Perfunctam invidiâ requiem, sedesque beatas
Quas bonus Hermes
10
Et tutela dabit solers Roüsi,
Quò neque lingua procax vulgi penetrabit, atque longè
80
Turba legentum prava facesset;
At ultimi nepotes,
Et cordatior ætas
Judicia rebus æquiora forsitan
Adhibebit integro sinu.
85
Turn livore sepulto,
Siquid meremur, sana posteritas sciet
Roüsio favente.
(Ode tribus constat strophis, totidémque antistrophis unâ demùm epodo clausis; quàs, tametsi omnes nec versuum numero nec certis ubique colis exactè respondeant, ita tamen secuimus, commodè legendi potius, quàm ad antiquos concinendi modos, rationem spectantes. Alioquin hoc genus rectiùs fortasse dici monstrophicum debuerat. Metra partim sunt
, partim
. Phaleucia quæ sunt, spondæum tertio loco bis admittunt, quod idem in secundo loco Catullus ad libitum fecit.)
11
LIBRARIAN OF OXFORD UNIVERSITY
An Ode concerning a lost volume of poems which he requested be sent to him a second time, so that it might be put back with my others in the public library.
1
STROPHE 1
Two-part book rejoicing in single garb,
2
/ although with double leaf, / and glittering with no painstaking elegance, / which a hand once / young wrought, [5] / a careful hand, yet by no means too great a poet’s, / while, unsettled, now through the Ausonian
3
shades, / now through British lawns he dallied, / innocent of people and out of touch with life, / he indulged his native lute, soon afterwards in like manner [10] / with Daunian
4
lyre he resounded his foreign air / to those around him, and barely touched the soil with his foot.
ANTISTROPHE
Who, little book, who with evil intent / withdrew you from your remaining brothers? / when, dispatched from the city, [15] / immediately upon request by my learned friend, / you were travelling the distinguished road / to the birthplace of the Thames,
5
/ the blue father, / where are the limpid fountains [20] / of the Aonides,
6
and the sacred Bacchic dance / known to the world through endless / ages, fallen away under the revolving heavens, / but celebrated to eternity?
STROPHE 2
Today what god or lofty creature of god, [25] / having pity on the primitive nature of my nation, / (if we have atoned sufficiently for our former offences / and the base idleness of our unmanly extravagance) / will remove forever the execrable civil wars of its citizenry,
7
/ and what sainted man will call back the nourishing studies [30] / and the banished Muses without abode / now in nearly all the bounds of England; / and who will pierce with Apollo’s quiver / the foul birds / with menacing talons, [35] / and drive the pest of Phineus far from Pegasus’ stream?
8
ANTISTROPHE
But, little book, though by the bad faith of the messenger / or his negligence, / you have wandered once from the company of your brothers, / whether some den holds you fast [40] / or some hidden recess, perhaps wherein / you are rubbed by the vile, calloused hand of a tasteless huckster, / be cheered, fortunate one; behold! again / a new hope shines to enable you / to avoid the abyss of Lethe, and be conveyed [45] / to the supreme court of Jove on oaring wing,
STROPHE 3
for Rouse selects you / for his own property, and from the rightful collection / promised, complains you to be removed, / and he requests you return to him, to whose care [50] / are the glorious monuments of men assigned: / and indeed in the sacred sanctuaries / over which he himself presides he has wished you to be preserved, / a faithful custodian of immortal works / and a guardian of treasure nobler [55] / than the golden tripods, and the Delphic gifts, / which Ion protects, / the honorable grandson of Erechtheus, / in the rich temple of the god, his father,
9
/ Ion, born of Actaean Creusa. [60]
ANTISTROPHE
Therefore you shall fly to see / the delightful groves of the Muses, / and again you shall find your way to the divine home of Phoebus / in the Oxford valley, which he frequents / in preference to Delos [65] / and the cleft peak of Parnassus: / You shall go full of honor, / since you also depart possessed of / a distinguished lot, invited by the prayer of a fortunate friend. / There you shall be read among the august names [70] / of authors, the ancient lights and true glory / both of the Greek and the Latin people.
EPODE
You at last my labors have not been in vain, / whatever that sterile genius has brought forth. / Now I bid you hope for placid rest [75] / discharged from envy in a later age, in the blessed abodes / which the good Hermes
10
gives / and the expert protection of Rouse, / where never shall penetrate the insolent speech of the multitude and even / the vicious throng of readers shall retire far off; [80] / but our distant descendants, / and a more prudent age / will perhaps exercise a fairer judgment / of things from its unbiassed breast. / Then with envy entombed, [85] / a rational posterity will know if I deserve any merit, / thanks to Rouse.
(The ode consists of three strophes, and the same number of antistrophes, closed at last by one epode; although all do not correspond exactly in the number of verses or in fixed parts where there are cola, nevertheless I have divided them thus in order to observe convenience in reading rather than respect to ancient rules of versifying. In other respects this type more correctly should probably have been called monostrophic. The meters are partly regularly patterned, partly free. There are two Phaleucian lines which admit a spondee in the third foot, which same practice Catullus freely employed in the second foot.)
11
(
Jan. 1647
)
1
Complying with Rouse’s request, Milton sent to the Bodleian Library a second copy of his 1645
Poems
, in which today the manuscript of this ode is found. The eleven prose tracts published to date (c. 1646) had been sent, with an autograph inscription, with the first copy.
2
The
Poems
were published with separate title pages and pagination (“gemina fronde”) for the English and the Latin poems; copies of the Latin poems without the English poems are extant.
3
Italian.
4
Italian.
5
Oxford.
6
See
El.
4, n. 10; l. 66 is also explained by this note.
7
reference primarily to the Civil Wars and a former extravagant life.
8
Apollo was god of archery. The Harpies (as noisome, ravenous birds) were sent to steal or defile the food of Phineus. Pegasus, the winged horse, had created the fountain Hippocrene, sacred to the Muses, by the stamp of his foot, and with his aid Bellerophon had destroyed the Chimaera and attempted to fly to heaven. Oxford is thus likened to Pegasus because of its cultivation of the Muses, its dispelling of ignorance, and its attempt at high achievement. The surrender of royalist Oxford to the Parliamentarians occurred six months before Milton wrote in June 1646.
9
Apollo’s temple at Delphi.
10
god of learning.
11
Milton’s concern in drawing attention to his prosodic experiment should be read alongside remarks accompanying the
Fifth Ode
and
Psalms
80-88 and alongside the metrics of
SA.
Prefacing the drama is the similar verse description: “call’d by the Greeks
Monostrophic
, or rather
Apolelymenon
, without regard had to
Strophe, Antistrophe
or
Epod.”
The Phaleucian consisted of a spondee, a dactyl, and three trochees. Catullus is thought of here primarily because he employed the hendecasyllabic line so frequently.
Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
render’d almost word for word without rime according to the Latin Measure, as near as the Language will permit.
1
What slender Youth bedew’d with liquid odours
Courts thee on Roses in some pleasant Cave,
Pyrrha?
for whom bindst thou
In wreaths thy golden Hair,
5
Plain in thy neatness? O how oft shall he
On Faith and changed Gods complain: and Seas
Rough with black winds and storms
Unwonted shall admire:
Who now enjoyes thee credulous, all Gold,
10
Who alwayes vacant, alwayes amiable
Hopes thee; of flattering gales
Unmindfull. Hapless they
To whom thou untry’d seem’st fair. Me in my vow’d
Picture the sacred wall declares t’ have hung
15
My dank and dropping weeds
To the stern God of Sea.
(
1646-48 ?
)
1
Milton aimed at reproducing Horace’s quantitative meters, and so subjoined the Latin text to allow the reader to evaluate his rendition. Perhaps this translation, along with
Ps.
80-88, which also emphasize the nature of the rendering, was intended as an exercise of prosodic discipline.