The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (Bantam Classic)

864 Pages·1999·7.06 MB·English

by  John Milton

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JOHN MILTON was born on December 9, 1608. A bril-
liant scholar, he received his B.A. and M.A. from Christ’s
College, Cambridge, and began writing poetry. Instead of
entering the ministry, he retired to his father’s country house
and for the next five years read day and night, devouring
most of the existing written works in English, Greek, Latin,
and Italian. During this period he wrote the masque Comus
(1634) and “Lycidas” (1637), an elegy memorializing a col-
lege classmate. In 1638 he went on a tour of Europe, spend-
ing most of his time in Italy. He returned home prematurely
because of the religious unrest in England and began writ-
ing tracts that branded him a radical. In 1642 he married
Mary Powell, a seventeen-year-old girl. Within six weeks,
she returned to her parents’ home, and Milton wrote a series
of angry pamphlets advocating divorce on the grounds of
incompatibility. Eventually, she returned and bore him four
children, three of whom survived. By 1651 Milton’s poor
eyesight failed completely, leaving him blind. After his
wife’s death, he remarried, only to have his second wife
die some months after childbirth. His third marriage, to
Elizabeth Minshull, was a longer and happier one. At the
Restoration, Milton narrowly escaped execution because of
his politics, but was left impoverished. Now he returned to
writing poetry and created the masterpieces for which he
will be forever remembered, beginning with Paradise Lost
(1667). He followed this epic with Paradise Regained and
Samson Agonistes ( jointly published in 1671). Milton died
in 1674. Along with Chaucer and Shakespeare, Milton is
one of the true giants of our language.

THE ANNOTATED
MILTON
Complete English Poems with annotations
lexical, syntactic, prosodic, and referential
Edited by
Burton Raffel
B A N T A M C L A S S I C
the annotated milton
A Bantam Book
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Bantam Classic edition published September 1999
Bantam Classic reissue / December 2008
Published by
Bantam Dell
A Division of Random House, Inc.
New York, New York
All rights reserved
Translation copyright © 1999 by Burton Raffel
Bantam Books and the rooster colophon are registered trademarks of
Random House, Inc.
eISBN: 978-0-553-90582 -3
www.bantamdell.com
v1.0
CONTENTS
Chronology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix
A PARAPHRASE ON PSALM 114 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
PSALM 136 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2
ON THE DEATH OF A FAIR INFANT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
AT A VACATION EXERCISE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST’S NATIVITY . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
THE PASSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
SONG: ON MAY MORNING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
ENGLISH SONNETS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
No. 1 O nightingale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31
No. 7 How soon hath time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .32
No. 8 Captain or colonel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33
No. 9 Lady, that in the prime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34
No. 10 Daughter to that good earl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .35
No. 11 I did but prompt the age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
vi CONTENTS
No. 12 A book was writ, of late . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
No. 13 Harry, whose tuneful . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37
No. 14 When faith and love . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .38
No. 15 Fairfax, whose name in arms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39
No. 16 Cromwell, our chief of men . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40
No. 17 Vane, young in years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
No. 18 Avenge, O Lord . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41
No. 19 When I consider . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
No. 20 Lawrence, of virtuous father . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .43
No. 21 Cyriack! Whose grandsire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .44
No. 22 Cyriack, this three years day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
No. 23 Methought I saw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
ON SHAKESPEARE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
ON THE UNIVERSITY CARRIER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
ANOTHER ON THE SAME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
AN EPITAPH ON THE MARCHIONESS
OF WINCHESTER. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
L’ALLEGRO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
IL PENSEROSO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
ARCADES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
COMUS: A MASQUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
ON TIME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
UPON THE CIRCUMCISION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
AT A SOLEMN MUSIC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
CONTENTS vii
LYCIDAS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
THE FIFTH ODE OF HORACE, BOOK ONE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
ON THE NEW FORCERS OF CONSCIENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
PSALMS 1–8: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
#1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
#2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
#3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
#4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
#5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
#6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
#7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
#8 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
PARADISE LOST . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Book I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .151
Book II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193
Book III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Book IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Book V . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .325
Book VI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Book VII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .409
Book VIII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .439
Book IX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
Book X . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .523
Book XI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 575
Book XII . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619
viii CONTENTS
PARADISE REGAINED . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 651
Book I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .653
Book II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .675
Book III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 697
Book IV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 717
SAMSON AGONISTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 745
Suggestions for Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823