Lycidas (Milton)

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more

Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,

I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude,

And with forc'd fingers rude

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear

Compels me to disturb your season due;

For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,

Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer.

Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew

Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.

He must not float upon his wat'ry bier

Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,

Without the meed of some melodious tear.

 

      Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well

That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring;

Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string.

Hence with denial vain and coy excuse!

So may some gentle muse

With lucky words favour my destin'd urn,

And as he passes turn

And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!

 

      For we were nurs'd upon the self-same hill,

Fed the same flock, by fountain, shade, and rill;

Together both, ere the high lawns appear'd

Under the opening eyelids of the morn,

We drove afield, and both together heard

What time the gray-fly winds her sultry horn,

Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night,

Oft till the star that rose at ev'ning bright

Toward heav'n's descent had slop'd his westering wheel.

Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute,

Temper'd to th'oaten flute;

Rough Satyrs danc'd, and Fauns with clov'n heel,

From the glad sound would not be absent long;

And old Damætas lov'd to hear our song.

 

      But O the heavy change now thou art gone,

Now thou art gone, and never must return!

Thee, Shepherd, thee the woods and desert caves,

With wild thyme and the gadding vine o'ergrown,

And all their echoes mourn.

The willows and the hazel copses green

Shall now no more be seen

Fanning their joyous leaves to thy soft lays.

As killing as the canker to the rose,

Or taint-worm to the weanling herds that graze,

Or frost to flowers that their gay wardrobe wear

When first the white thorn blows:

Such, Lycidas, thy loss to shepherd's ear.

 

      Where were ye, Nymphs, when the remorseless deep

Clos'd o'er the head of your lov'd Lycidas?

For neither were ye playing on the steep

Where your old bards, the famous Druids, lie,

Nor on the shaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva spreads her wizard stream.

Ay me! I fondly dream

Had ye bin there'—for what could that have done?

What could the Muse herself that Orpheus bore,

The Muse herself, for her enchanting son,

Whom universal nature did lament,

When by the rout that made the hideous roar

His gory visage down the stream was sent,

Down the swift Hebrus to the Lesbian shore?

 

      Alas! what boots it with incessant care

To tend the homely, slighted shepherd's trade,

And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?

Were it not better done, as others use,

To sport with Amaryllis in the shade,

Or with the tangles of Neæra's hair?

Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise

(That last infirmity of noble mind)

To scorn delights and live laborious days;

But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,

And think to burst out into sudden blaze,

Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears,

And slits the thin-spun life. "But not the praise,"

Phoebus replied, and touch'd my trembling ears;

"Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,

Nor in the glistering foil

Set off to th'world, nor in broad rumour lies,

But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes

And perfect witness of all-judging Jove;

As he pronounces lastly on each deed,

Of so much fame in Heav'n expect thy meed."

 

      O fountain Arethuse, and thou honour'd flood,

Smooth-sliding Mincius, crown'd with vocal reeds,

That strain I heard was of a higher mood.

But now my oat proceeds,

And listens to the Herald of the Sea,

That came in Neptune's plea.

He ask'd the waves, and ask'd the felon winds,

"What hard mishap hath doom'd this gentle swain?"

And question'd every gust of rugged wings

That blows from off each beaked promontory.

They knew not of his story;

And sage Hippotades their answer brings,

That not a blast was from his dungeon stray'd;

The air was calm, and on the level brine

Sleek Panope with all her sisters play'd.

It was that fatal and perfidious bark,

Built in th'eclipse, and rigg'd with curses dark,

That sunk so low that sacred head of thine.

 

      Next Camus, reverend sire, went footing slow,

His mantle hairy, and his bonnet sedge,

Inwrought with figures dim, and on the edge

Like to that sanguine flower inscrib'd with woe.

"Ah! who hath reft," quoth he, "my dearest pledge?"

Last came, and last did go,

The Pilot of the Galilean lake;

Two massy keys he bore of metals twain

(The golden opes, the iron shuts amain).

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake:

"How well could I have spar'd for thee, young swain,

Enow of such as for their bellies' sake

Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold?

Of other care they little reck'ning make

Than how to scramble at the shearers' feast

And shove away the worthy bidden guest.

Blind mouths! that scarce themselves know how to hold

A sheep-hook, or have learn'd aught else the least

That to the faithful herdman's art belongs!

What recks it them? What need they? They are sped;

And when they list their lean and flashy songs

Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw,

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed,

But, swoll'n with wind and the rank mist they draw,

Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread;

Besides what the grim wolf with privy paw

Daily devours apace, and nothing said,

But that two-handed engine at the door

Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more".

 

      Return, Alpheus: the dread voice is past

That shrunk thy streams; return, Sicilian Muse,

And call the vales and bid them hither cast

Their bells and flow'rets of a thousand hues.

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use

Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks,

On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,

Throw hither all your quaint enamel'd eyes,

That on the green turf suck the honied showers

And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.

Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,

The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,

The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well attir'd woodbine,

With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,

And every flower that sad embroidery wears;

Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,

And daffadillies fill their cups with tears,

To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.

For so to interpose a little ease,

Let our frail thoughts dally with false surmise.

Ay me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas

Wash far away, where'er thy bones are hurl'd;

Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,

Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide

Visit'st the bottom of the monstrous world,

Or whether thou, to our moist vows denied,

Sleep'st by the fable of Bellerus old,

Where the great vision of the guarded mount

Looks toward Namancos and Bayona's hold:

Look homeward Angel now, and melt with ruth;

And, O ye dolphins, waft the hapless youth.

 

      Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,

For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,

Sunk though he be beneath the wat'ry floor;

So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed,

And yet anon repairs his drooping head,

And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore

Flames in the forehead of the morning sky:

So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high

Through the dear might of him that walk'd the waves;

Where, other groves and other streams along,

With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves,

And hears the unexpressive nuptial song,

In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love.

There entertain him all the Saints above,

In solemn troops, and sweet societies,

That sing, and singing in their glory move,

And wipe the tears for ever from his eyes.

Now, Lycidas, the shepherds weep no more:

Henceforth thou art the Genius of the shore,

In thy large recompense, and shalt be good

To all that wander in that perilous flood.

 

      Thus sang the uncouth swain to th'oaks and rills,

While the still morn went out with sandals gray;

He touch'd the tender stops of various quills,

With eager thought warbling his Doric lay;

And now the sun had stretch'd out all the hills,

And now was dropp'd into the western bay;

At last he rose, and twitch'd his mantle blue:

To-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new.

 

                                    Difficult Words Meaning:

Never-sear: Never wither

crude : immature

shatter : disperse

 dear : serious

welter: roll about

 meed: token of honour

 tear: synonym for elegy

 lawns: grass lands

gray-fly: colour

battening: making fat

Damœtas: fellow of the college

gadding: nomadic

 canker: canker-worm

taint-worm: a worm infects cattle.

white thorn: the common hawthorn.

clear: dignified

herald of the sea: Triton

pledge: kid

sped: provided for

 flashy: unimportant

use: familiar

swart star: Sirius

rathe: premature

 freak’d: marked

amaranthus: an eternal flower

 laureate hearse. frame supporting the bier

stormy Hebrides: islands off the northwest coast of Scotland

moist vows: tearful prayers

Angel: St. Michael

day-star: perhaps the sun

Genius: the spirit

Quills: hollow reeds of shepherd’s pipes

Blue: the colour of hope

                       

 

 

Paraphrase

Once again a glory and dark myrties with evergreen ivy. I reluctantly come to pluck your sour and immature berries. I again come to upset your leaves before the time of ripeness. The occurrence of my dear friend, Lycidas death forced me to pluck you before your proper season Lycidas dies in the best part of his life, i.e. the youth. He does not left behind any person equal to him who would sing for him.

                                                    

The friend of the poet Lycidas himself knew to sing and he had created the lofty rhyme. He must not be buried without melodious tears. The poet appeals the nine Muses to inspire him so that he may mourn his friend's death in a befitted manner. He asks them not to play lyre softly and to away with excuse showing coyness. As he now writes a poem to the memory of Lycidas, so may someone, when he is dead, write kindly words for him. And in passing he may turn and pray that sweet peace may rest upon him in dark coffin. Because they were the students of same college at some hill, studying same subject from same teachers in a same stream.

 

Milton and his friend Lycidas were together in moorland open fields. They drove the same flock out into fields from dawn to noon and from noon to evening. They would drive the flock towards west, towards the horizon. They were playing on oaten flutes like satyres and Fauns and dancing with their cloven feet and horns. This glad sound would not fade away very soon because dear Damaetas loved to listen their song.

 

The art has gone now as there is a sad change and will never return mourn sheeephed mourn for all the woods and the deserts with wild thymes and wandering vine grown everywhere in abundance all are mourning The willows and green hazels groves will never fan their green leaves in joy The death of Lycidas in a great loss and harm to the shepherd (poet) as the canker is harmful to the rose or taint worm is harmful to the cattle or frost to flowers which destroys all colorful flowers

 

The question is about the absence of goddesses of rivers and mountains. They were not present when Lycidas was drowned by the cruel waves. Nor they were playing in the mountains where the Druds and bards are buried. Also they were not present in groves of Mona and river Deva spreading their mystical powers. Their presence may have saved Lycidas from death by drowning. They could do nothing for their son, orphans, whose music captivated the whole universe, for whom all the people lamented. The rebellious crowd  of Thracian women screamed vociferously when he  was sent down the river Herbus at the By Lesbon shore.

Now it is futile to write poetry with zeal and enthusiasm as the people do not care for it. It is much better to write lyrical poetry like other contemporary poets. It is reputation which makes a poet live difficult days in the service of poetry, but just when a poet is near reputation and fame, his life is cut short by luck and he dies. But the next moment Apollo, the god of poetry, reminds him that true reputation is not of this material world and but it is after death.

The poet appeals to Fountain Arethusse and its honored river.  He also appeals to Mincius which is so enclosed by reeds He says them that he has heard the speech of Phoebus in a magnificent style. Now he is started again and his subject and listens to the Herald of the sea which pleads on behalf of Neptune, god of the sea. He addresses the winds that they are cruel because they have not expressed disapproval on the death of Lyscidas. 

He asked all the guests of violent and turbulent winds that blow on the outcrops about the sad death of Lycidas.  Sage hippotades brings answer to these questions He says that wind was locked up in prison so they were not allowed to burst. The air was tranquil and sea- nymphs were playing as natural. It was in fact the ship which was built in conceal and was cursed by witches  and caused the death of Lycidas.

 

 

The death of Lycidas was mourned by Camus  who is an old, reputable dignitary, and his old age signifies the antique. He comes walking slowly to mourn the death of his beloved Lycidas. His mantle is hairy and his head- dress is made of sedge. His dress is thus suggestive of the weeds that In float on the surface of the rivers and of the sedge which grows on its banks. Some words of grief are decorated on co the rim of his hat, as on the border of the Hyacinth flower. He asked with anguish as to who had taken away from him his darling child. All the students and staff of Cambridge University loved Lycidas and they lamented his death.

 

St. Peter had also mourned the death of Lycidas.  He had two types of keys, one of gold and the other of iron. The golden-key is used to open the gates of paradise and the iron one is used to shut these gates. He trembles with sorrow his grey-haired head on which he was wearing the head- dress of a Bishop, he being the first Bishop of the Christian Church. He spoke furiously and condemned the corrupt and dishonest clergy of the time. Lycidas was an honest young man who would have become an honest clergyman and true shepherd to his sheep. St Peter could have sacrificed a number of other to save his life. Their death would not have been such a great loss as is the death of Lycidas. The clergy of that time were corrupt. They were more materialistic than God fair ones. They were worshiping in the church not to pray but to earn more and more. He compares them with the greedy wolves that enter a sheep flock slaughter them one by one. They are enemies of the worshippers in the guise of friends. Their eyes are always upon earning and the profit. They are like unwanted guests who impolitely force their way in and push away the admirable guests who have been invited to feast given by a shepherd to celebrate the shearing of his sheep. They have entered the by church by using offensive and dishonest practices and have depressed the honest clergy of their due privileges and places.

The priests were dishonest as they do not do nor they are aware about their duty. Whatever they preach and whatever they practice there is a lot of difference. The neither do any type of prayer themselves nor they help common masses for spiritual enlightenment. Milton compares them with starving, unhappy and hungry sheep. The doctrines and religious now theories which they teach are dangerous and heretical, and they endanger and corrupt the soul of the people. The clergy men of the Church were dishonest and corrupted and contaminated inwardly; but from exterior they pretend to be pure and honest. Here Milton attacks the Catholic Church. He compares the Catholic Church with a hungry wolf which preys secretly on the true Protestant Church and creates chaos and confusion among the common masses.  In other words, more and more people are being converted to Roman Catholicism and nothing is being done by the Protestant Clergy to stop this wreck. However, the day justice is near. The anger of God, in the form of the Reformation; would hit a forceful blow at all such evils and corrupt practices.

 

After the voice of St. Peter disapproving then Alpheus returns, the dishonest priests are now past that momentarily checked the flow of the streams. Then Sicilian Muses return and call the valleys at the coffin of Lycidas. They put different flowers of many shapes and colours on grave of Lycidas.  The valleys are covered with fresh flowers and not with swart stars. These flowers are not often found in the valleys. The deep valleys are free from the influence of the burning dog-stars and hence the flowers are fresh and bright there. These flowers are graceful, pretty, and bright- like enamel. There is green grass, sweet and refreshing rain, spring flowers growing in abundance that they give the green turf a purple shade. All the types of flowers such as: prim- rose, cowslips white Jessamine and daffodils are mourning for Lycidas's death. Let us thus, in order to comfort ourselves for a little while please our weak fancies by imagining that we actually have the dead body of Lycidas to strew with flowers.  His dead body is being drifted about by the waves. Then it is washed from coast to coast and sea to sea and sometimes it is thrown on the shore. His body goes to the bottom of the sea and nobody had found it.

 

If sinked in the sea, Lycidas is not dead in reality. Like the sun, he would ascend again and live a comfortable and nobler life in some other region. His dwelling from now on would be paradise. Perhaps he would become the luminous of the shore near which he was drowned, and defend from harm all those who sail in that treacherous sea.

 

 

Summary:

'Lycidas' is an elegy written by Milton in 1637.  It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, entitled Justa Edouardo King Naufrago.  Many poems in this compilation are in Greek and Latin, "Lycidas" is one of the poems written which was in English. Milton republished the poem in 1645.This is also known as monody which is in the form of a rustic elegy. In elegy the speaker laments the accidental death, by drowning of Milton's friend Edward King. So this is dedicated to the memory of Edward King. He was Milton’s friend at Cambridge and drowned when his ship sank in the Irish Sea off the coast of Wales in August 1637.  He was a gifted young man of great intellect. The elegy takes its name from the subject matter, not its form. The elegy has 193 lines and is irregularly rhymed.  In harmony with the pastoral tradition, the poet explains the occasion for writing the poem and depicts his friend as dead before his prime.

            “Lycidas” can be conveniently divided into six sections i.e. it starts with prologue, body divides in to four main parts, and ends with an epilogue. In the prologue (lines 1-24) Milton appeals to the Muse and gives explanation for writing the poem. In the Second Section (lines, 25-84) he depicts the life his childhood friend Lycidas which they had spend at Cambridge. Milton mourns the death of his friend Lycidas in the mode of conventional elegiac poets. Milton wrote ‘Lycidas’ in the memory of his friend and college-mate king Edward who was drowned in the seas in a shipwreck.

 

            The subject of this elegy is Edward King, his brief life and tragic death, it arranges this as an outline for Milton’s own reflections on poetry in general, religious belief and other aspects of the contemporary world. “Lycidas” embodies more than any other pastoral poem all the multifarious elements of pastoralism.

Theme:

“Lycidas” is one of the most pastoral elegies in the English Literature. It pursues the magnificent tradition of Greek elegies. The mains themes in "Lycidas" are: death, rebirth, and corruption in the church. The main theme of this elegy is Death; as his friend Edward King, whom he attended college with, drowned and his body was lost at sea. Milton wrote this elegy for him. In ‘Lycidas’ the principal mourners are three: the pastoral landscape with its shepherds representing poetry, the spirit of the river Cam representing scholarship and St. Peter representing religion.

            In short, Milton narrates pain or the lament over the issues of death of his friend king Edward who was extremely allied with him. The theme of this elegy is also the theme of Bible. Much of the poem seems to dwell on the possibility of combining poetry and service of God, which was Milton’s greater theme.

 

Analysis and Explanation:

Stanza-1: When the poem starts the speaker is gathering leaves for the funeral of his friend. He pluck berries and ivy that are undeveloped, slaughter them sooner than their season. Here he compares plants with his friend; the plants die also at infantile.

Stanza-2:  In this stanza the speaker chooses to write a funeral song for his friend, the very whose name he keeps “Lycidas”. He calls upon the muses to fill him with song like other pastoral poets.

 

Stanza-3: The speaker or the poet Milton recalls his childhood days. He remembers the days he spent with his friend summoning pastoral descriptions that relates with images that are covering Milton’s own memories of his days with his friend Edward King. The descriptions are in pastoral imagery. Milton laments the death of Lycidas in the manner of traditional elegiac poets. Milton returns to the pastoral style, and describes a demonstration of mourners mourning the Lycidas’s death. The procession is led by Triton, the herald of the Sea, and St. Peter etc. Through the character of St. Peter, Milton describes the contemporary clergy men and the sad condition of the Protestant Church in England.

 

Stanza-4:  In this stanza he describes the type of life Lycidas and the poet had at Cambridge. They together- Lycidas and Milton - began their study early in the morning, continued throughout the day late into the night. Besides, there were innocent recreations. But now that Lycidas was dead; a great change, heavy change had taken place.

Stanza-5: In stanza 5, he asks the nymphs why they were not there to help his friend Lycidus when he died. He asks the Muse where she had been when her Lycidas was dying, and adds that even her presence would not have saved him.

Stanza-6: In stanza 6, the speaker reaches the first major crisis of the poem. He wonders whether poetry can accomplish anything, and reflects on the limitations of fame on Earth. The god Apollo (Phoebus) arrives to console him with the promise of fame in Heaven, an early version of the poem’s final consolation in the Christian promise of resurrection. In this section Milton expresses his faith in immortality. Anguish and distress are transitory. And though Lycidas is actually dead, he has arisen from the dead.

            The last stanzs of the poem goes back to poem’s starting picture of the shepherd, who has now finished his elegy. He looks across the “western bay” at the sunset, gathers his cloak around him, and sets out for “fresh woods and pastures new,” lines that suggest Milton’s commitment to the next part of the life in poetry that he is claiming for himself. In stanzas 7 through 9, the speaker imagines a swing of water gods incoming to mourn the death of Lycidas. They have come to answer the call the speaker made to the muses at the beginning of the poem, when he asked them to fill his urn with water and mourn Lycidas as they passed. In stanza 9, the speaker calls upon the flowers to mourn for Lycidas. In stanza 10, the speaker imagines the sun setting only to rise again. Lycidas like the setting sun and had died only to rise in better splendor.

The poem concludes on a happier message, combing tranquil, gorgeous acquiescence and optimism. The conclusion points to a new fortitude both to face life optimistically, and to rise up to greater poetic triumphs.