In this early lyric, perhaps his first original poem in English, Milton tries to lay doubts to rest by finding a providential scheme within which the infant’s death can be seen as a divine attempt to bring Earth and Heaven closer together or improve the lot of mankind.
The poem ends with a prophecy that we take literally: “This if thou do he will an offspring give,/That till the world’s last end shall make thy name to live.” Hoping to make “offspring” metaphorical, modern editors often cite God’s promise to the eunuchs in Isaiah 56.5: “Even unto them will I give … a name better than of sons and daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.” So Milton’s “offspring” becomes salvation and eternal bliss, matters that render trivial all parental concern with earthly offspring. But Milton does not say that the fame of the offspring is eternal. Quite the opposite, he says that it will last until the end of the world. Recourse to Isaiah in interpreting “Fair Infant” probably does not occur before 1921 (Hughes et al. 2:135). Proponents clearly hope that the biblical passage can fend off the apparent sense of Milton’s lines, which in turn is thought to suppose a Milton so fame-crazed that he would console a patient sister with the promise of another child with a glorious future. But that is precisely what he has done. Milton’s sister was indeed pregnant at the time of the fair infant’s death, and she gave birth to Elizabeth Phillips in April 1628.
ANNO AETATIS 17
I
O fairest flower no sooner blown but blasted,1–2 1
Soft silken primrose fading timelessly,2
Summer’s chief honor if thou hadst outlasted3
Bleak Winter’s force that made thy blossom dry;
For he being amorous on that lovely dye5
That did thy cheek envermeil, thought to kiss6 6–7
But killed alas, and then bewailed his fatal bliss.
II
For since grim Aquilo his charioteer8–9
By boist’rous rape th’ Athenian damsel got,
He thought it touched his deity full near,
If likewise he some fair one wedded not,
Thereby to wipe away th’ infamous blot
Of long-uncoupled bed, and childless eld,13
Which ’mongst the wanton gods a foul reproach was held.
III
So mounting up in icy-pearlèd car,15
Through middle empire of the freezing air16
He wandered long, till thee he spied from far;
There ended was his quest, there ceased his care.
Down he descended from his snow-soft chair,19
But all unwares with his cold-kind embrace20
Unhoused thy virgin soul from her fair biding place.
IV
Yet art thou not inglorious in thy fate;
For so Apollo, with unweeting hand23
Whilom did slay his dearly-lovèd mate,
Young Hyacinth born on Eurotas’ strand,25
Young Hyacinth the pride of Spartan land;
But then transformed him to a purple flower:23–27
Alack that so to change thee Winter had no power.
V
Yet can I not persuade me thou art dead
Or that thy corse corrupts in earth’s dark womb,
Or that thy beauties lie in wormy bed,
Hid from the world in a low delvèd tomb;
Could Heav’n for pity thee so strictly doom?
O no! For something in thy face did shine
Above mortality that showed thou wast divine.
VI
Resolve me then O soul most surely blest36
(If so it be that thou these plaints dost hear),
Tell me bright spirit where’er thou hoverest,
Whether above that high first-moving sphere39
Or in the Elysian fields (if such there were).40
O say me true if thou wert mortal wight,
And why from us so quickly thou didst take thy flight.
VII
Wert thou some star which from the ruined roof
Of shaked Olympus by mischance didst fall;
Which careful Jove in nature’s true behoof45
Took up, and in fit place did reinstall?
Or did of late Earth’s sons besiege the wall47
Of sheeny Heav’n, and thou some goddess fled
Amongst us here below to hide thy nectared head?
VIII
Or wert thou that just maid who once before50
Forsook the hated earth, O tell me sooth,
And cam’st again to visit us once more?
Or wert thou that sweet smiling youth?53
Or that crowned matron, sage white-robèd Truth?54
Or any other of that Heav’nly brood
Let down in cloudy throne to do the world some good?
IX
Or wert thou of the golden-wingèd host,57
Who having clad thyself in human weed,
To earth from thy prefixèd seat didst post,59
And after short abode fly back with speed,
As if to show what creatures Heav’n doth breed,
Thereby to set the hearts of men on fire
To scorn the sordid world, and unto Heav’n aspire?
X
But O why didst thou not stay here below
To bless us with thy Heav’n-loved innocence,
To slake his wrath whom sin hath made our foe,66
To turn swift-rushing black perdition hence,
Or drive away the slaughtering pestilence,68
To stand ’twixt us and our deservèd smart?
But thou canst best perform that office where thou art.
XI
Then thou the mother of so sweet a child71
Her false imagined loss cease to lament,
And wisely learn to curb thy sorrows wild;
Think what a present thou to God hast sent,
And render him with patience what he lent;75
This if thou do he will an offspring give,
That till the world’s last end shall make thy name to live.76–77
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Notes for ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT DYING OF A COUGH
1–2. O fairest … fading: The opening echoes The Passionate Pilgrim 10.1–2: “Sweet rose, fair flower, untimely plucked, soon faded,/Plucked in the bud and faded in the spring!” This work was ascribed to Shakespeare in 1599 and 1640, but we now believe that Shakespeare wrote only five of its twenty sonnets. The author of the one echoed by Milton is unknown.
1. blown: bloomed.
2. timelessly: unseasonably, not in due time.
3. chief honor: that for which Summer would be honored.
5. amorous on: in love with.
6. envermeil: tinge with vermilion.
6–7. thought to kiss/But killed: Shakespeare also conjoins kiss and kill in VEN 1110 and OTH 5.2.356–57.
8–9. In Ovid, Boreas, the north wind, also called Aquilo, snatches away Orithyia, daughter of the king of Athens (Met. 6.682–710). Milton makes Aquilo into Winter’s charioteer, and his boist’rous rape into the incitement of Winter’s lust.
13. eld: old age.
15. icy-pearlèd car: chariot decorated with hailstones.
16. middle empire: the middle of the three traditional regions of air.
19. snow-soft chair: another description of the chariot of line 15, now seemingly cushioned with snow.
20. cold-kind embrace: an embrace kind in its intention but chilling in its consequences.
23–27. Apollo accidentally killed his beloved Hyacinthus with a discus and made a brightly colored (purpureus) flower spring from his blood (Ovid, Met. 10.162–216). At least one commentator (Servius; see Allen 49) blamed Boreas (Aquilo) for the accident.
23. unweeting: a variant of unwitting.
25. born … strand: Hyacinthus was born in Sparta, which is situtated on the river Eurotas.
36. Resolve me: Answer my questions, solve my problems (OED 3.11b).
39. first-moving sphere: the primum mobile, the outermost sphere of the Ptolemaic universe.
40. Elysian fields: home of the blessed dead in Homer (Od. 4.561–69) and Plato (Phaedo 112E).
45. behoof: benefit.
47. Earth’s sons: the Giants, who warred against the gods (Hesiod, Theog. 183–85).
50. that just maid: Astraea, goddess of Justice, who fled the earth when corruption followed the golden age. See Nat Ode 141–46.
53. Something apparently dropped out of this line when the poem was first printed, in 1673. It is missing a metrical foot, and the youth lacks his allegorical identity. Words such as Mercy and Virtue have been inserted between thou and that, which saves the meter; but these allegorical figures are never male, and youth in Milton always refers to a male.
54. white-robèd Truth: See Cesare Ripa, Iconologia 530.
57. golden-wingèd host: the angels.
59. prefixèd: preordained.
66. his: God’s.
68. pestilence: There was a major outbreak of plague in 1625–26. Milton could be assuming that the birth of Anne Phillips did drive away that plague. She will be an even more effective advocate in Heaven.
71. Then thou: The address has shifted from the dead child to its mother.
75. render: give back; lent: The idea that life is lent to us by God and in the end must be paid back was commonplace (see Jonson, “On My First Son” 3–5, “On My First Daughter” 2–4).
76–77. See headnote.
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AT A VACATION EXERCISE
At some point during the summer vacation months (July through October) of 1628, Milton presided over festive exercises at Christ’s College. In keeping with the traditions behind such saturnalian occasions, he first of all delivered the two raucous Latin orations that constitute Prolusion 6. The speeches were peppered with boisterous jokes about gender, sex, farts, and the like. Then the master of ceremonies broke into these pentameter English couplets. Milton’s opening address to the English language, including his dismissal of the stylistic tastes of “late fantastics” (l. 20), is playful. With “Yet I had rather, if I were to choose” (l. 29), the tone shifts from schoolboy fun to personal yearnings serious enough to be already drafting at age nineteen a life plan dedicated to their realization: for a noble epic subject, an answerable style, a unique access to the divine secrets of the universe, and an enraptured audience. After exhibiting his literary dreams, Milton returns via a beautiful imitation of Horace (see 53–58n) to the business at hand, which is to play out the role of mocking the “Ens,” or Father of the concepts of Aristotelian logic, first adopted in the earlier Latin segment of the college entertainment. In graver minds, however, the hall must have kept on shimmering with the revelation of what this amusing student, if he were to choose, would rather be doing.
The work was first printed in 1673.
ANNO AETATIS 19
The Latin speeches ended, the English thus began.
Hail native language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavoring tongue to speak,
And mad’st imperfect words with childish trips,
Half unpronounced, slide through my infant lips,
Driving dumb silence from the portal door,
Where he had mutely sat two years before:
Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little grace can do thee:
Thou need’st not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packed the worst:12
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintiest dishes shall be served up last.
I pray thee then, deny me not thy aid
For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee straight to do me once a pleasure,
And from thy wardrobe bring thy chiefest treasure;
Not those new-fangled toys, and trimming slight19
Which takes our late fantastics with delight,20
But cull those richest robes, and gay’st attire
Which deepest spirits, and choicest wits desire:
I have some naked thoughts that rove about
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And weary of their place do only stay
Till thou hast decked them in thy best array;
That so they may without suspect or fears27
Fly swiftly to this fair assembly’s ears;
Yet I had rather, if I were to choose,29–52
Thy service in some graver subject use,
Such as may make thee search thy coffers round,
Before thou clothe my fancy in fit sound:32
Such where the deep transported mind may soar33
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav’n’s door34
Look in, and see each blissful deity
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings37
To th’ touch of golden wires, while Hebe brings38
Immortal nectar to her kingly sire:
Then passing through the spheres of watchful fire,40
And misty regions of wide air next under,
And hills of snow and lofts of pilèd thunder,42
May tell at length how green-eyed Neptune raves,
In Heav’n’s defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of kings and queens and heroes old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told48
In solemn songs at King Alcinous’ feast,
While sad Ulysses’ soul and all the rest
Are held with his melodious harmony
In willing chains and sweet captivity.
But fie my wand’ring Muse, how thou dost stray!53
Expectance calls thee now another way;
Thou know’st it must be now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy predicament:
Then quick about thy purposed business come,
That to the next I may resign my room.53–58
Then ENS is represented as Father of the Predicaments, his ten sons, whereof the eldest stood for SUBSTANCE with his Canons, which ENS thus speaking, explains.
Good luck befriend thee son; for at thy birth
The fairy ladies danced upon the hearth;
Thy drowsy nurse hath sworn she did them spy
Come tripping to the room where thou didst lie;
And sweetly singing round about thy bed
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou shouldst still
From eyes of mortals walk invisible;66
Yet there is something that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A sibyl old, bow-bent with crookèd age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in time’s long and dark prospective glass71
Foresaw what future days should bring to pass.
“Your Son,” said she, “(nor can you it prevent)
Shall subject be to many an accident.
O’er all his brethren he shall reign as king,
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under;
In worth and excellence he shall outgo them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his brothers shall depend for clothing.
To find a foe it shall not be his hap,
And Peace shall lull him in her flow’ry lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his door
Devouring War shall never cease to roar:
Yea, it shall be his natural property
To harbor those that are at enmity.”87–88
What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?90
The next, QUANTITY and QUALITY, spoke in prose, then RELATION was called by his name.
Rivers arise; whether thou be the son91
Of utmost Tweed, or Ouse, or gulfy Dun,92
Or Trent, who like some Earth-born giant spreads
His thirty arms along th’ indented meads,
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,95
Or Severn swift, guilty of maiden’s death,
Or rocky Avon, or of sedgy Lea,
Or coaly Tyne, or ancient hallowed Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythian’s name,99
Or Medway smooth, or royal-towered Thame.
The rest was prose.
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Notes for AT A VACATION EXERCISE
12. thither: in the Latin oration that preceded these English couplets.
19. new-fangled toys: idle fancies, appealing in their novelty.
20. takes: captivates, puts a spell upon; late fantastics: in the immediate context, showy dressers; but since dressing throughout lines 18–26 refers metaphorically to adopting a poetic style or manner, the late (recent) fantastics apparently names a modish school of writers given to fanciful notions. Some have taken Milton to be criticizing the metaphysical manner, but he might just as well be tweaking a form of expression cultivated by some of his fellow students.
27. suspect: suspicion.
29–52. Here Milton digresses from the academic conviviality of the immediate occasion to reveal his literary ambitions.
32. fancy: invention.
33. deep: high (Lat.
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