The Poetical Works of John Milton

ORIGINAL VARIOUS READINGS

OF THE

ODE AT A SOLEMN MUSICK.

There are three draughts, or copies, of this Song: all in Milton's own hand-writing. There occur some remarkable expressions in these various readings which Doctor Newton and Mr. Warton have not noticed. TODD.

Ver. 3. Mixe your choise words, and happiest sounds employ,
Dead things with inbreath'd sense able to pierce;

And as your equal raptures, temper'd sweet,
In high misterious spousall meet;

Snatch us from earth awhile,

Us of ourselves and native woes beguile :
And to our high-rays'd phantasie present

That undisturbed song &c.

Here, in the first draught, it is "And whilst your equal raptures:" in the second, whilst is erased, and as written over it. In the second draught also, the next line was

In high misterious holie spousall meet;

but holie is expunged, and happie supplied in the margin: and, in the last of these original lines, "native woes" was originally "home-bred woes."

Ver. 10. Where the bright Seraphim in tripled row.

But, in the first draught, princely row.

Ver. 11. In the first draught the line seems to have been written (for the manuscript here is torn and imperfect)

Next,

Their loud immortal trumpets blow.

Loud symphonie of silver trumpets blow.

In the second draught he first wrote,

High lifted, loud and angel trumpets blow.

Which he afterwards altered to the present reading.

Ver. 12. And Cherubim, sweet-winged squires,

Then called Heaven's henshmen, which means the same; hensh

man, or henchman, signifying a page of honour. See Minsheu, and also Mids. N. Dr. A. ii. S. 2.

"I do but beg a little changeling boy

"To be my henchman:"

The Queen of Fairies is the speaker. Milton's curious expressions are in the first draught.

Ver. 14. With those just Spirits that wear the blooming palms, Hymnes devout and sacred psalmes

Singing everlastingly;

While all the starry rounds and arches blue
Resound and echo Hallelu:

That we on earth, &c.

Ver. 18. May rightly answere that melodious noise,

By leaving out those harsh ill sounding jarres
Of clamorous sin that all our musick marres :
And in our lives and in our song

May keepe in tune with Heaven, &c.

In the second draught he describes "the harsh discords" of

sin by a technical term in musick:

By leaving out those harsh CHROMATICK jarres

Of sin that all our musick marres.

Ver. 19. As once we could, &c.

Ver. 28. To live and sing with him in ever endlesse light.

Then "ever endlesse" is changed into "ever-glorious," which is next converted into "uneclipsed." The latter part of the line is also varied in the following order:

where day dwells without night.

in endlesse morne of light.

in cloudlesse birth of light.

in never-parting light.

EPITAPH

ON THE

MARCHIONESS OF WINCHESTER.

THIS rich marble doth inter

The honour'd wife of Winchester,

A Viscount's daughter, an Earl's heir,
Besides what her virtues fair
Added to her noble birth,

More than she could own from earth.
Summers three times eight save one
She had told; alas! too soon,

After so short time of breath,

To house with darkness, and with death.

Yet had the number of her days

Been as complete as was her praise,
Nature and Fate had had no strife

In giving limit to her life.

Ver. 4. Besides what her virtues fair &c.] In Howell's entertaining Letters, there is one to this lady, the Lady Jane Savage, marchioness of Winchester, dated Mar. 15, 1626. He says, assisted her in learning Spanish: and that Nature and the Graces exhausted all their treasure and skill, in “ framing this exact model of female perfection." He adds, "I return you here the Sonnet your Grace pleased to send me lately, rendered into Spanish, and fitted from the same ayre it had in English both for cadence and feete," &c. Howell's Letters, vol. i. §. 4. Let. xiv. p. 180, ut supr. I make this citation to justify and illustrate our author's panegyrick. T. WARTON.

Her high birth, and her graces sweet, Quickly found a lover meet;

The virgin quire for her request

The god that sits at marriage feast;

He at their invoking came,

But with a scarce well-lighted flame;

And in his garland, as he stood,

Ver. 15. Her high birth, and her graces sweet,

It is

Quickly found a lover meet ;] She was the wife of John marquis of Winchester, a conspicuous loyalist in the reign of king Charles the first, whose magnificent house or castle of Basing in Hampshire withstood an obstinate siege of two years against the rebels, and when taken was levelled to the ground, because in every window was flourished Aymez Loyaute. He died in 1674, and was buried in the church of Englefield in Berkshire; where, on his monument, is an admirable epitaph in English verse written by Dryden, which I have often seen. remarkable, that both husband and wife should have severally received the honour of an epitaph from two such poets as Milton and Dryden. Nor should it be forgotten, that Jonson wrote a pathetick poem entitled An Elegie on the Lady ANNE PAWLETT Marchioness of Winton. UNDERW. vol. vii. 17. But Jane appears in the text of the poem, with the circumstance of her being the daughter of Lord Savage. See Note on v. 55. She therefore must have been our author's Marchioness. Compare Cartwright's Poems, p. 193. T. WARTON.

Ver. 19. He at their invoking came,

But with a scarce well-lighted flame ;] Almost literally from his favourite poet Ovid, Metam. x. 4. Of Hymen.

"Adfuit ille quidem; sed nec solennia verba,

"Nec lætos vultus, nec felix attulit omen :

"Fax quoque quam tenuit, lacrymoso stridula fumo,

Usque fuit, nullosque invenit motibus ignes."

I find I have been preoccupied by Dr. Jortin in noting this

Ye might discern a cypress bud.
Once had the early matrons run
To greet her of a lovely son,

And now with second hope she goes,
And calls Lucina to her throes;
But, whether by mischance or blame,
Atropos for Lucina came;

And with remorseless cruelty
Spoil'd at once both fruit and tree:
The hapless babe, before his birth,
Had burial, yet not laid in earth ;
And the languish'd mother's womb
Was not long a living tomb.

So have I seen some tender slip,

Ver. 22. Ye might discern a cypress bud.] An emblem of a funeral; and it is called in Virgil "feralis," Æn. vi. 216, and in Horace "funebris," Epod. v. 18, and in Spenser "the cypress funeral," Faer. Qu. i. i. 8. NEWTON.

Ver. 31. The hapless babe, before his birth,

Had burial, &c.] So, in Rime di Luigi Groto, 1601, p. 138. “Figlio morto nel ventre della madre, e poi trattone fuori.

"Doue giamai s' udì sì strana sorte

"Che auanti il nascer suo si giunga a morte ?" TODD. Ver. 33. And the languish'd mother's womb

Was not long a living tomb.] As in Brown's Brit. Pastorals, B. ii. S. i. edit. 1616.

"Where neuer plow-share ript his mother's wombe
"To giue an aged seed a liuing tombe."

And in Sylvester's Du Bart. ed. 1621, p. 493, of the fish,

That, swilling, swallow'd Jonas in her womb;

"A liuing corps, laid in a living toomb."

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The Poetical Works of John Milton: With Notes of Various Authors, 6권