Poemata : Latin, Greek and Italian Poems by John Milton

by John Milton

I

Fair Lady, whose harmonious name the Rheno
Through all his grassy vale delights to hear,
Base were, indeed, the wretch, who could forbear
To love a spirit elegant as thine,
That manifests a sweetness all divine, 5
Nor knows a thousand winning acts to spare,
And graces, which Love's bow and arrows are,
Temp'ring thy virtues to a softer shine.
When gracefully thou speak'st, or singest gay
Such strains as might the senseless forest move, 10
Ah then—turn each his eyes and ears away,
Who feels himself unworthy of thy love!
Grace can alone preserve him, e'er the dart
Of fond desire yet reach his inmost heart.

II

As on a hill-top rude, when closing day
Imbrowns the scene, some past'ral maiden fair
Waters a lovely foreign plant with care,
That scarcely can its tender bud display
Borne from its native genial airs away, 5
So, on my tongue these accents new and rare
Are flow'rs exotic, which Love waters there,
While thus, o sweetly scornful! I essay
Thy praise in verse to British ears unknown,
And Thames exchange for Arno's fair domain; 10
So Love has will'd, and oftimes Love has shown
That what He wills he never wills in vain.
Oh that this hard and steril breast might be
To Him who plants from heav'n, a soil as free.

III
Canzone.

They mock my toil—the nymphs and am'rous swains—
And whence this fond attempt to write, they cry,
Love-songs in language that thou little know'st?
How dar'st thou risque to sing these foreign strains?
Say truly. Find'st not oft thy purpose cross'd, 5
And that thy fairest flow'rs, Here, fade and die?
Then with pretence of admiration high—
Thee other shores expect, and other tides,
Rivers on whose grassy sides
Her deathless laurel-leaf with which to bind 10
Thy flowing locks, already Fame provides;
Why then this burthen, better far declin'd?
Speak, Canzone! for me.—The Fair One said who guides
My willing heart, and all my Fancy's flights,
"This is the language in which Love delights." 15

IV
To Charles Diodati.

Charles—and I say it wond'ring—thou must know
That I who once assum'd a scornful air,
And scoff'd at love, am fallen in his snare
(Full many an upright man has fallen so)
Yet think me not thus dazzled by the flow 5
Of golden locks, or damask cheek; more rare
The heart-felt beauties of my foreign fair;
A mien majestic, with dark brows, that show
The tranquil lustre of a lofty mind;
Words exquisite, of idioms more than one, 10
And song, whose fascinating pow'r might bind,
And from her sphere draw down the lab'ring Moon,
With such fire-darting eyes, that should I fill
My ears with wax, she would enchant me still.

V.

Lady! It cannot be, but that thine eyes
Must be my sun, such radiance they display
And strike me ev'n as Phoebus him, whose way
Through torrid Libya's sandy desert lies.
Meantime, on that side steamy vapours rise 5
Where most I suffer. Of what kind are they,
New as to me they are, I cannot say,
But deem them, in the Lover's language—sighs.
Some, though with pain, my bosom close conceals,
Which, if in part escaping thence, they tend 10
To soften thine, they coldness soon congeals.
While others to my tearful eyes ascend,
Whence my sad nights in show'rs are ever drown'd,
'Till my Aurora comes, her brow with roses bound.

VI.1

Enamour'd, artless, young, on foreign ground,
Uncertain whither from myself to fly,
To thee, dear Lady, with an humble sigh
Let me devote my heart, which I have found
By certain proofs not few, intrepid, sound, 5
Good, and addicted to conceptions high:
When tempests shake the world, and fire the sky,
It rests in adamant self-wrapt around,
As safe from envy, and from outrage rude,
From hopes and fears, that vulgar minds abuse, 10
As fond of genius, and fix'd fortitude,
Of the resounding lyre, and every Muse.
Weak you will find it in one only part,
Now pierc'd by Love's immedicable dart.

1 It has ever been thought difficult for an author to speak gracefully of himself, especially in commendation; but Milton, who was gifted with powers to overcome difficulties, of every kind, is eminently happy in this particular. He has spoken frequently of himself both in verse and prose, and he continually shows that he thought highly of his own endowments; but if he praises himself, he does it with that dignified frankness and simplicity of conscious truth, which renders even egotism respectable and delightful: whether he describes the fervent and tender emotions of his juvenile fancy, or delineates his situation in the decline of life, when he had to struggle with calamity and peril, the more insight he affords us into his own sentiments and feelings, the more reason we find both to love, and revere him.—W.C.

Appendix: Cowper's translation of Andrew Marvell's "To Christina,
Queen of Sweden," &c.

To Christina, Queen of Sweden, with Cromwell's Picture.1

Christina, maiden of heroic mien!
Star of the North! of northern stars the queen!
Behold, what wrinkles I have earn'd, and how
The iron cask still chafes my vet'ran brow,
While following fate's dark footsteps, I fulfill
The dictates of a hardy people's will.
But soften'd, in thy sight, my looks appear,
Not to all Queens or Kings alike severe.

1 Written on Cromwell's behalf, this poem was originally attr. to Milton, hence Cowper's inclusion of it. It has since been recognized as the work of Marvell.

Appendix: Poems from the Latin Prose Works. Translated by various
hands.

Epigram From "Pro Populo Anglicano Defensio" (I650).
Translated by Joseph Washington (I692).

On Salmasius's "Hundreda."

Who taught Salmasius, the French chatt'ring Pye,1
To try at English, and "Hundreda"2 cry?
The starving Rascal, flush'd with just a Hundred
English Jacobusses,3 "Hundreda" blunder'd.
An outlaw'd King's last stock.—a hundred more,
Would make him pimp for th'Antichristian Whore;4
And in Rome's praise employ his poison'd Breath,
Who once threatn'd to stink the Pope to death.

1 i.e. The Magpie. 2 Salmasius attempted to do certain English words in his Latin. a "Hundred" was a division of an English shire. 3 The Jacobus was a gold coin named for James I. 4 Salmasius attacked the Pope in "De Primatu Papae" in I645.

Epigrams from the "Defensio Secunda" (I654).
Translated by Robert Fellowes (I878?).

On Salmasius.

Rejoice, ye herrings, and ye ocean fry,
Who, in cold winter, shiver in the sea;
The knight, Salmasius,1 pitying your hard lot,
Bounteous intends your nakedness to clothe,
And, lavish of his paper, is preparing
Chartaceous jackets to invest you all,
Jackets resplendent with his arms and fame,
Exultingly parade the fishy mart,
And sing his praise with checquered, livery,
That well might serve to grace the letter'd store
Of those who pick their noses and ne'er read.

1 A play on "Salmon."

[Lines Concerning Alexander More.]1

O Pontia, teeming with More's Gallic seed,
You have been Mor'd2 enough, and no More need.

1 Wrongly attr. to Milton, who prefaced these lines with, "Ingenii, hoc distochon" [Some ingenious person wrote this distich]. Milton wrongly believed More to be the author of a libel against him.

2 It is impossible to give a literally exact rendering of this. I have played upon the name as well as I could in English.—R.F.

Appendix: Translation of a Letter to Thomas Young,
Translated by Robert Fellows (I878?).

To My Tutor, Thomas Young.

Though I had determined, my excellent tutor, to write you an epistle in verse, yet I could not satisfy myself without sending also another in prose, for the emotions of my gratitude, which your services so justly inspire, are too expansive and too warm to be expressed in the confined limits of poetical metre; they demand the unconstrained freedom of prose, or rather the exuberant richness of Asiatic phraseology: thought it would far exceed my power accurately to describe how much I am obliged to you, even if I could drain dry all the sources of eloquence, or exhaust all the topics of discourse which Aristotle or the famed Parisian logician has collected. You complain with truth that my letters have been very few and very short; but I do not grieve at the omission of so pleasurable a duty, so much as I rejoice at having such a place in your regard as makes you anxious often to hear from me. I beseech you not to take it amiss, that I have not now written to you for more than three years; but with you usual benignity to impute it rather to circumstances than to inclination. For Heaven knows that I regard you as a parent, that I have always treated you with the utmost respect, and that I was unwilling to tease you with my compositions. And I was anxious that if my letters had nothing else to recommend them, they might be recommended by their rarity. And lastly, since the ardour of my regard makes me imagine that you are always present, that I hear your voice and contemplate your looks; and as thus… I charm away my grief by the illusion of your presence, I was afraid when I wrote to you the idea of your distant separation should forcibly rush upon my mind; and that the pain of your absence, which was almost soothed into quiescence, should revive and disperse the pleasurable dream. I long since received your desirable present of the Hebrew Bible. I wrote this at my lodgings in the city, not, as usual, surrounded by my books. If, therefore, there be anything in this letter which either fails to give pleasure, or which frustrates expectation, it shall be compensated by a more elaborate composition as soon as I return to the dwelling of the muses.1 —London, March 26, I625.

1 i.e. Cambridge.

Appendix: Translations of the Italian Poems
By George MacDonald (I876).

I.

O lady fair, whose honoured name doth grace
Green vale and noble ford of Rheno's stream—
Of all worth void the man I surely deem
Whom thy fair soul enamoureth not apace,
When softly self-revealed in outer space 5
By actions sweet with which thy will doth teem,
And gifts—Love's bow and shafts in their esteem
Who tend the flowers one day shall crown thy race.
When thou dost lightsome talk or gladsome sing,—
A power to draw the hill-trees, rooted hard— 10
The doors of eyes and ears let that man keep,
Who knows himself unworthy thy regard.
Grace from above alone him help can bring,
That passion in his heart strike not too deep.

II.

As in the twilight brown, on hillside bare,
Useth to go the little shepherd maid,
Watering some strange fair plant, poorly displaced,
Not thriving in unwonted soil and air,
Far from its native springtime's genial care; 5
So on my ready tongue hath Love assayed
Of a strange speech to wake new flower and blade,
While I of thee, in scorn so debonair,
Sing songs whose sense is to my people lost-
Yield the fair Thames, and the fair Arno gain. 10
Love willed it so, and I, at others' cost,
Already knew Love never willed in vain.
Ill would slow mind, hard heart reward the toil
Of him who plants from heaven so good a soil,

III.
Canzone.

Ladies, and youths that in their favour bask,
With mocking smiles come round me: Prithee, why,
Why dost thou with an unknown language cope,
Love-riming? Whence the courage for the task?
Tell us—so never frustrate be thy hope, 5
And the best thoughts still to thy thinking fly!
Thus mocking they: Thee other streams, they cry,
Thee other shores, another sea demands,
Upon whose verdant strands
Are budding, every moment, for thy hair, 10
Immortal guerdon, leaves that will not die;
An over-burden on thy back why bear?—
Song,1 I will tell thee; thou for me reply:
My lady saith-and her word is my heart—
This is Love's mother-tongue, and fits his part. 15

1 Ital. "Canzone."

IV.
To Charles Diodati.

Diodati—and I muse to tell the tale—
This stubborn I, that Love was wont despise,
And made a laughter of his snares, unwise,
Am fallen, where honest feet will sometimes fail.
Not golden tresses, not a cheek vermeil, 5
Bewitched me thus; but, in a new-world guise,
A beauty that the heart beatifies;
A mien where high-souled modesty I hail;
Eyes softly splendent with a darkness dear;
A speech that more than one tongue vassal hath; 10
A voice that in the middle hemisphere
Might make the tired moon wander from her path;
While from her eyes such potent flashes shoot,
That to stop hard my ears would little boot.

V.

Truly,1 my lady sweet, your blessed eyes—
It cannot be but that they are my sun;
As strong they smite me as he smites upon
The man whose way o'er Libyan desert lies,
The while a vapour hot doth me surprise, 5
From that side springing where my pain doth won;
Perchance accustomed lovers—I am none,
And know not—in their speech call such things sighs;
A part shut in, itself, sore vexed, conceals,
And shakes my bosom; part, undisciplined, 10
Breaks forth, and all about in ice congeals;
But that which to mine eyes the way doth find,
Makes all my nights in silent showers abound,
Until my Dawn2 returns, with roses crowned.

1 Correcting MacDonald's "Certes" (Ital. "Per Certo"). 2 [Ital.] "Alba"-I suspect a hint at the lady's name.-G.M.

VI.

A modest youth, in love a simpleton,
When to escape myself I seek and shift,
Lady, I of my heart the humble gift
Vow unto thee. In trials many a one,
True, brave, it has been, firm to things begun, 5
By gracious, prudent, worthy thoughts uplift.
When roars the great world, in the thunder-rift,
Its own self, armour adamant, it will don,
From chance and envy as securely barred,
From hopes and fears that still the crowd abuse, 10
As inward gifts and high worth coveting,
And the resounding lyre, and every Muse.
There only wilt thou find it not so hard
Where Love hath fixed his ever cureless sting.