[55] / Am I deceived? or is it from them that Apollo also obtains his rays? / I did not austerely shun these pleasurable sights, / but was guided where the impulse of youth led me. / I sent my glances to meet their looks, / poorly cautious, nor could I have restrained my eyes. [60] / By chance I remarked one surpassing all others; / her radiance was the beginning of my misfortune. / Thus Venus herself might choose to appear to mortals, / thus was the queen of the gods11 worthy of attention. / That wicked Cupid, remembering, cast her before me, [65] / and he alone has woven these snares in my path. / Not far off the cunning one himself was hiding with his many arrows, / and the burden of his mighty torch weighed down his back. / Without delay, he now was fixed on the eyelids, now on the mouth of the maid. / Then he sprang upon her lips, thereupon he lighted on her cheek, [70] / and wherever the agile dart-thrower flits in his office— / alas for me! he strikes my defenseless breast in a thousand places. / Forthwith unaccustomed passions assailed my heart; / I burned with love inwardly, and was all in flame. / Meanwhile she who alone now was delighting me with misery [75] / was borne off, never to return to my eyes. / But I went forth silently complaining, and without understanding / and uncertain I often wished to retrace my step. / I am torn apart; part stays behind, the other follows my desire, / and I was happy to weep for pleasures so suddenly snatched away. [80] / Thus lamented Juno’s child12 for his lost heaven, / cast down among the hearths of Lemnos, / and such was Amphiaraus,13 carried off to Hell by his terrified horses, / when he looked back on the vanished sun. / What should I do, unhappy and by sorrow overcome? Incipient love [85] / one is not permitted to dismiss or to pursue. / O if only it were granted me once to look upon her beloved / features, and to relate my sad words in her presence! / Perhaps she is not made of hard adamant, / perhaps she would not be deaf to my prayers. [90] / Believe me, no one burned so unhappily with love; / I may be considered the foremost and only example. / Spare me, I pray, since you are the winged god of gentle love; / do not let your deeds contend with your duty. / Now O child of the goddess, your fearful bow [95] / is assuredly to me no less powerful than fire / and your altars will smoke with my gifts. / To me you will be the only one and the greatest one among the supreme gods. / Take away, at least, my passions, yet do not take them; / I do not know why, every lover is sweetly wretched. [100] / Only grant, courteous one, if hereafter any maiden is to be mine, / that a single point shall transfix the two in love.
(May 1630)
1 Venus.
2 the beautiful youth Ganymede.
3 He was drawn into a spring by the water nymphs who were enamored of his beauty.
4 When he killed the dragon of Delphi, Apollo boasted his archery greater than Cupid’s, and so was smitten with unrequited love for Daphne.
5 The successful Parthian method of fighting was to turn one’s horse as if in flight after each arrow was discharged.
6 Cydon in southern Crete was noted for its archers.
7 Cephalus, who accidentally killed Procris.
8 The hunter Orion’s pursuit of the Pleiades caused them and him to be turned into constellations.
9 perhaps Theseus, whose marriages to Ariadne, Hippolyta, and Phaedra ended unhappily. Theseus was well known as the only one who stood by Hercules after he had killed his wife and children.
10 The attribute of Aesculapius was the snake, a symbol of rejuvenescence and thus of healing.
11 Juno.
12 Vulcan.
13 A seer, Amphiaraus foreknew his death in the conflict with the Seven against Thebes.
(Lines appended to Elegia septima)1
Hæc ego mente olim lævâ, studioque supino
Nequitiæ posui vana trophæa meæ.
Scilicet abreptum sic me malus impulit error,
Indocilisque ætas prava magistra fuit.
5
5 Donec Socraticos umbrosa Academia rivos
Præbuit, admissum dedocuitque jugum.
Protinus extinctis ex illo tempore flammis,
Cincta rigent multo pectora nostra gelu.
Unde suis frigus metuit puer ipse Sagittis,
10
10 Et Diomedéam2 vim timet ipsa Venus.
(Lines appended to Elegy 7)1
I with foolish mind and heedless zeal formerly / erected these idle monuments to my wantonness. / Undoubtedly mischievous error impelled me, thus carried off, / and my ignorant youth was a perverse teacher, / until the shady Academy proffered its Socratic streams [5] / and untaught the admitted yoke. / Directly, with the flames from that time extinct, / my encircled breast congealed with ice, / from which the boy himself dreaded frigidity for his arrows, / and Venus herself is afraid of my Diomedean2 strength. [10]
(1630 ?)
1 The study of Plato and his Academy moved Milton to disavow, probably not seriously, the affectation of some of his early verse. The “monuments to my wantonness” are therefore perhaps the various poems in Latin and English dealing with awakening amorousness, although usually only El. 7 is suggested.
2 The Greek warrior Diomedes wounded Venus during the Trojan War after she tried to protect Aeneas (Iliad, V, 334–46).
Song: On May Morning1
Now the bright morning Star, Dayes harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowry May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
5
5 Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
Woods and Groves are of thy dressing,
Hill and Dale doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
10
10 And welcom thee, and wish thee long.
(May 1630 ?)
1 The song itself, ll. 5-8, is in the meter of Epitaph on the Marchioness, L’Allegro, and Il Penseroso.
Sonnet 11
O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray
Warbl’st at eeve, when all the Woods are still,2
Thou with fresh hope the Lovers heart dost fill,
While the jolly hours lead on propitious May;
5
5 Thy liquid notes that close the eye of Day,
First heard before the shallow Cuccoo’s bill
Portend success in love; O if Jove’s will
Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay,
Now timely sing, ere the rude Bird of Hate
10
10 Foretell my hopeles doom in som Grove nigh:
As thou from yeer to yeer hast sung too late
For my relief; yet hadst no reason why.
Whether the Muse, or Love call thee his mate,
Both them I serve, and of their train am I.
(May 1630 ?)
1 In the immediate background is the lyric The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, probably by Thomas Clanvowe though attributed to Chaucer in Milton’s day.
2 Compare El. 5, 25-26.
Sonnet 2
Donna leggiadra, il cui bel nome honora
L’herbosa val di Rheno, e il nobil varco,1
Ben è colui d’ogni valore scarco
Qual tuo spirto gentil non innamora,
5
5 Che dolcemente mostrasi di fuora
De’ suoi atti soavi giamai parco,
E i don’, che son d’amor saette ed arco,
Là onde l’alta tua virtu s’infiora.
Quando tu vaga parli, o lieta canti
10
10 Che mover possa duro alpestre legno,
Guardi ciascun a gli occhi, ed a gli orecchi
L’entrata, chi di te si truova indegno;
Gratia sola di sù gli vaglia, inanti
Che’l disio amoroso al cuor s’invecchi.
Sonnet 2
Charming lady, she whose beautiful name honors / the verdant valley of Reno, and the illustrious ford,1 / justly is he of every worth discharged / whom your noble soul does not inspire with love, / for it sweetly shows itself from without, [5] / in its gentle acts never sparing, / and the gifts which are the arrows and bow of Love, / there where your high virtue flowers. / When you so sweetly speak or gaily sing / that its power stirs the obdurate alpine wood, [10] / let everyone who finds himself unworthy of you / guard the entrance to the eyes and to the ears; / grace alone from above enables him to withstand / the amorous desire which would lodge itself in his heart.
(1630 ?)
1 As Smart showed, the lady is one Aemilia, the name of the Italian province through which flow the Reno and the Rubicon with its famous ford.
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