Minor Poems by Milton Part 14

The poet listens to what in the phrase of his time is a _solemn music_, but which we should name a sacred concert. The poem is unalloyed lyric, expressing the rapture to which the music has lifted his soul. We must remember that Milton was himself an amateur musician, and in his days of darkness found habitual diversion at his organ. Indications of a susceptible and appreciative ear for musical harmony are frequent throughout the poems.

7. the sapphire-colored throne. See Ezekiel I 26.

27. consort is the word from which we derive our _concert_.

COMUS.

During the reigns of Elizabeth, James I., and Charles I., the _mask_ was one of the most popular forms of dramatic entertainment. Having a function and a character peculiar to itself, it flourished side by side with the regular plays of the theatrical stage, and gave large scope to the genius of poets, composers, and scenic artists.

The mask was usually designed to grace some important occasion, in which members of the upper cla.s.ses of society, or even royal personages, were concerned. When the occasion called for particularly brilliant display, and had been long foreseen, the preparations for it would involve immense outlays for costumes, theatrical machinery, for new music, and for a libretto by a play-writer of the greatest note. When the mask was purely a private one, like Arcades and Comus, it was all the fas.h.i.+on for the gentle youths and maidens, for gentlemen and ladies of the highest rank, to take upon themselves the parts of the drama, to rehea.r.s.e them a.s.siduously, and finally to enact them on the private stage or on the lawn in the presence of a select audience.

The mask thus differentiated itself from the stage play in that it was not given for the pecuniary behoof of a company of actors, but represented rather expenditure for the simple purpose of producing grand effects. To act in a mask was an honor, when common players were social outcasts. The mask was got up for the occasion, and was not intended to keep the boards and attract a paying public. When the august ceremonial was over, the poet had his ma.n.u.script, to increase the bulk of his works, and the composer had his score, to furnish airs that might be played and sung in drawing-rooms if they had the good fortune to be popular.

Such was the origin of the poem which Milton, in all the editions published during his lifetime, ent.i.tled simply "A Maske presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634," but which editors since his day have agreed to name Comus.

The occasion of the poem was the coming of the Earl of Bridgewater to Ludlow Castle, to enter upon his official residence there as Lord President of Wales. The person chiefly concerned in the scenic, musical, and histrionic preparations of the mask was Milton's esteemed friend, the most accomplished musical composer of the day, Henry Lawes. Lawes composed the music and arranged the stage business. He seems to have taken upon himself the part of the Attendant Spirit. Lawes knew to whom to apply for the all-important matter of the book, the words, or the poetry, of the piece, for he had learned to know Milton's qualifications as a mask-poet in the fragment which we have under the name _Arcades_.

With good music even for commonplace lyric verse, and with sprightly declamation even of conventional dialogue, the thing, as we know from modern instances, might have been carried off by gorgeous costumes and shrewdly devised scenic effects. Most of the masks of the time fell at once into oblivion. But Lawes had secured for his poet John Milton; and the consequence thereof is that the Earl of Bridgewater is now chiefly heard of because at Ludlow Castle there was enacted, in the form of a mask written by Milton, a drama which is still read and reread by every English-speaking person who reads any serious poetry, though Ludlow Castle has long been a venerable ruin.

For his plot, the poet feigned that the young children of the earl, two sons and a daughter, in coming to Ludlow, had to pa.s.s unattended through a forest, in which the boys became separated from the girl and she fell into the hands of the enchanter Comus. The Attendant Spirit appears to the youths with his magic herb, and with the further a.s.sistance of the water-nymph Sabrina, at last makes all right, and the children are restored to their parents in the midst of festive rejoicing.

The poem is dramatic, because it is acted and spoken or sung in character by its persons. It is allegorical, because it inculcates a moral, and more is meant than meets the ear. In parts it is pastoral, both because the chief personage appears in the guise of a shepherd, and because its motive largely depends on the superst.i.tions and traditions of simple, ignorant folk. In the longer speeches, where events are narrated with some fulness, it becomes epic. Lastly, in its songs, in the octosyllables of the magician, and in the adjuration and the thanking of Sabrina, it is lyric. With iambic pentameter as the basis of the dialogue, the poet varies his measures as Shakespeare does his, and with very similar ends in view.

The name _Comus_ Milton found ready to his hand. As a common noun, the Greek word _comus_ signifies carousal,--wa.s.sail. In the later cla.s.sic period it had become a proper name, standing for a personification of nocturnal revelry, and a G.o.d Comus was frequently depicted on vases and in mural paintings. Philostratus, in his _Ikones_,--or _Pictures_,--gives an interesting description of a painting of this G.o.d. See Encyclopaedia Britannica, article _Comus_. Ben Jonson, in his mask, _Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue_, played in 1619, presents a Comus as "the G.o.d of cheer, or the belly, riding in triumph, his head crowned with roses and other flowers, his hair curled." The character and the name were the common property of mask-writers.

The great distinction of Comus is its beauty, maintained at height through a thousand lines of supremely perfect verse. Greatly dramatic it of course is not. It yields its meaning to the most cursory reading; it has no mystery. It is simply beautiful, with a sustained beauty elsewhere unparalleled.

The following letter of Sir Henry Wotton to the Author deserves to be read both for its engaging style as a piece of English prose and for its exquisite characterization of Comus. Wotton was a versatile scholar, diplomat, and courtier, seventy years old at the time of this letter, with a reputation as a kindly and appreciative literary critic. He was now residing at Eton College, where he held the office of Provost.

Milton, thirty years of age, the first edition of his Comus recently published anonymously, had good cause for elation over such a testimonial from such a source.

"From the College, this 13 of April, 1638.

"Sir,

"It was a special favour when you lately bestowed upon me here the first taste of your acquaintance, though no longer than to make me know that I wanted more time to value it and to enjoy it rightly; and, in truth, if I could then have imagined your farther stay in these parts, which I understood afterwards by Mr. H., I would have been bold, in our vulgar phrase, to mend my draught (for you left me with an extreme thirst), and to have begged your conversation again, jointly with your said learned friend, over a poor meal or two, that we might have banded together some good Authors of the ancient time; among which I observed you to have been familiar.

"Since your going, you have charged me with new obligations, both for a very kind letter from you dated the 6th of this month, and for a dainty piece of entertainment which came therewith. Wherein I should much commend the tragical part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain Doric delicacy in your Songs and Odes, whereunto I must plainly confess to have seen yet nothing parallel in our language: _Ipsa mollities_. But I must not omit to tell you that I now only owe you thanks for intimating unto me (how modestly soever) the true artificer.

For the work itself I had viewed some good while before with singular delight; having received it from our common friend Mr. R., in the very close of the late R.'s Poems, printed at Oxford: whereunto it was added (as I now suppose) that the accessory might help out the princ.i.p.al, according to the art of Stationers, and to leave the reader _con la bocca dolce_.

"Now, Sir, concerning your travels; wherein I may challenge a little more privilege of discourse with you. I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way: therefore I have been bold to trouble you with a few lines to Mr. M. B., whom you shall easily find attending the young Lord S. as his governor; and you may surely receive from him good directions for the shaping of your farther journey into Italy where he did reside, by my choice, some time for the King, after mine own recess from Venice.

"I should think that your best line will be through the whole length of France to Ma.r.s.eilles, and thence by sea to Genoa; whence the pa.s.sage into Tuscany is as diurnal as a Gravesend barge. I hasten, as you do, to Florence or Siena, the rather to tell you a short story, from the interest you have given me in your safety.

"At Siena I was tabled in the house of one Alberto Scipioni, an old Roman courtier in dangerous times; having been steward to the Duca di Pagliano, who with all his family were strangled, save this only man that escaped by foresight of the tempest. With him I had often much chat of those affairs, into which he took pleasure to look back from his native harbour; and at my departure toward Rome (which had been the centre of his experience), I had won his confidence enough to beg his advice how I might carry myself there without offence of others or of mine own conscience. '_Signor Arrigo mio_,' says he, '_I pensieri stretti ed il viso sciolto_ will go safely over the whole world.' Of which Delphian oracle (for so I have found it) your judgment doth need no commentary; and therefore, Sir, I will commit you, with it, to the best of all securities, G.o.d's dear love, remaining

"Your friend, as much to command as any of longer date,

"Henry Wotton."

_Postscript._

"Sir: I have expressly sent this my footboy to prevent your departure without some acknowledgment from me of the receipt of your obliging letter; having myself through some business, I know not how, neglected the ordinary conveyance. In any part where I shall understand you fixed, I shall be glad and diligent to entertain you with home-novelties, even for some fomentation of our friends.h.i.+p, too soon interrupted in the cradle."

The Latin phrase, _ipsa mollities_, may be translated,--it is the very perfection of delicacy. The Italian words below mean,--My dear Henry, thoughts close, face open.

1. Before the starry threshold of Jove's court. The attendant spirit not only announces himself as a dweller in heaven, but he specifies his particular function among the celestials: he is doorkeeper in the house of G.o.d.

3. insphered. Compare Il Penseroso 88.

7. Confined and pestered. _Pester_ has its primitive meaning, to clog or enc.u.mber. In this pinfold here. _Pinfold_ is probably not connected with the verb to pen, but is a shortened form of poundfold, and means, literally, an enclosure for stray cattle.

10. After this mortal change: after this life on earth, which is subject to death.

11. Amongst the enthroned G.o.ds. Make but two syllables of _enthroned_, and accent the first.

The long sentence ending with line 11 is very loose in construction: the _and_ in line 7 is a coordinate conjunction, but does not connect coordinate elements.

13. To lay their just hands on that golden key. Compare Lycidas 110.

16. these pure ambrosial weeds. Ambrosial has its proper meaning,--pertaining to the immortals.

20. by lot 'twixt high and nether Jove. Neptune drew lots with Jupiter and Pluto. To Jupiter fell the region of the upper air, to Pluto the lower world, and to Neptune the sea. The ancient poets sometimes spoke of Jupiter and Pluto as the upper and the lower Jove.

25. By course commits to several government: in due order he a.s.signs the islands to his tributaries, giving them an island apiece.

27. But this Isle is so large that he has to divide it.

29. Consider quarters to mean nothing more than divides. his blue-haired deities. The epithet is conventional, taken from the Greek poets, and probably has no special significance in this pa.s.sage.

31. A n.o.ble Peer. This connects the poem with actual persons and announces its occasion. The n.o.ble peer is the Earl of Bridgewater, and the event which is to be celebrated is his appointment to the Vice-royalty of Wales.

33. The old and haughty nation are the Welsh.

34. his fair offspring are two sons and a daughter, who are to play the parts of the Two Brothers and the Lady in the mask.

37. the perplexed paths of this drear wood. Compare Par. Lost IV 176.

41. sovran. See note on Hymn on the Nativity 60.

45. in hall or bower. Hall and bower are conventionally coupled by the poets to signify the dwellings, respectively, of the gentry and the laboring cla.s.ses.