The Poetics of Milton
Part 9 - Comus, a Maske (1634)
After Milton’s graduation from Cambridge with a Master of Arts in July 1632, he moved back home with his parents – his father was now retired and had moved away from London to the quiet hamlet of Hammersmith. Here Milton would continue his self-study, where he thought about ‘the desire of house and family of his own’, and about ‘the desire of honour and repute and immortal fame seated in the breast of every true scholar’.
In 1634, he was asked to compose a ‘Maske’ (Masque) for the Egerton family, on the occasion of the appointment of John Egerton, the Earl of Bridgewater, as Lord President of Wales, and that it would be performed by Egerton’s young daughter and two sons, and their music teacher, Henry Lawes. Henry Lawes was also a court musician and singer, was a member of the Chapel Royal, and was receiving an annual government stipend.
But … why would this well-known and respected composer and musician ask an unknown and unpublished Cambridge graduate to write a masque for his well-placed employer, the Earl of Bridgewater?
One can only surmise that somehow Lawes was familiar with Milton’s poetical compositions. And one may additionally surmise that the only compositions of Milton’s that would have merited such interest from Lawes had to have been ’L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’. And we can see and hear that the meter of these two poems is the same as the meter of ‘Comus’. Without knowing who wrote them, one can immediately tell that they are all by the same author. And perhaps, we may also surmise that Lawes wished for a masque in that same meter and also with that same youthful voice and wonderment.
From a studied reading of ‘L’Allegro’, ‘Il Penseroso’, and ‘Comus’, one can imagine that Milton’s mind lived in a world of Greek myths and stories about the gods and men. But not a world of ‘heaped Elysian flowers’ that was divorced from the real world. This can be seen in his ‘invented’ Comus – the son of Circe and Bacchus, and his troop of pleasure-seeking and pain-avoiding Bacchanalian revelers, and of Comus’s sophistry that is confronted by the young lady and her two brothers – something that might be reminiscent of Socrates fighting those sophists that tried to corrupt the Athenian youth, as likewise, did the corrupting imported cults, like Bendis.
Note: In Plato’s ‘Republic’ dialogue, in the opening meeting between Adeimantus and Polemarchus, they talk of the festival and a horse-race at night, where each rider carries a torch. This first feast to Bendis, in Athens (where she was Hellenised), is reported to have been in 429 BC, during the beginning of the Peloponnesian war.
A Thracian mother goddess, Bendis was often identified with the huntress goddess, Artemis and the moon goddess, Hecate. An annual feast, Bendidea, was held in her honour. The geographer Strabo says that the rites and customs of the Bendidea and the Cotytia are like those found in Thracian and Phrygian types of revelry – Bacchus (Dionysus) and Rhea (Cybele). Her attributes include a Thracian-style pointed hat and boots made of fox-skin, while holding up a torch in one hand.
This short and simple masque [short and simple because the main actors were the children of Egerton] has Milton trying to bring this fight of ideas into a real world. And like ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’, we have the two different spirits in the masque – Thyrsis and Comus, doing battle. Milton’s mirthful world of ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’, was not the same as the revelry of Comus. Milton seems to be saying, freedom - yes, but licentiousness - no.
First we hear from Thyrsis, one of Jove’s Attendant Spirits, who reveals to us his mission – he is sent to protect those who are ‘favoured of high Jove’.
“Before the starry threshold of Jove’s court
My mansion is, where those immortal shapes
Of bright aerial Spirits live insphered
In regions mild of calm and serene air,
Above the smoke and stir of this dim spot
Which men call Earth, and, with low-thoughted care,
Confined and pestered in this pinfold here,
Strive to keep up a frail and feverish being,
Unmindful of the crown that Virtue gives,
After this mortal change, to her true servants
Amongst the enthroned gods on sainted seats.
Yet some there be that by due steps aspire
To lay their just hands on that golden key
That opes the Palace of Eternity.
To such my errand is; and, but for such,
I would not soil these pure ambrosial weeds
With the rank vapours of this sin-worn mould.”
[lines 1-17]
And Thyrsis tells the story of a king, whose children (a daughter and two sons) were on their way to visit him, when they became lost in the woods along the way. And that is who Thyrsis was dispatched to protect.
“But to my task. Neptune, besides the sway
Of every salt flood and each ebbing stream.
Took in, by lot ‘twixt high and nether Jove,
Imperial rule of all the sea-girt Isles
That, like to rich and various gems, inlay
The unadorned bosom of the Deep;
Which he, to grace his tributary gods,
By course commits to several government,
And gives them leave to wear their sapphire crowns
And wield their little tridents. But this Isle,
The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-haired deities;
And all this tract that fronts the falling sun
A noble Peer of mickle trust and power
Has in his charge, with tempered awe to guide
An old and haughty Nation, proud in arms:
Where his fair offspring, nursed in princely lore,
Are coming to attend their father's state,
And new-intrusted sceptre. But their way
Lies through the perplexed paths of this drear wood,
The nodding horror of whose shady brows
Threats the forlorn and wandering passenger;
And here their tender age might suffer peril,
But that, by quick command from sovran Jove,
I was despatched for their defence and guard!”
[lines 18-42]
And then Thyrsis tells us who he was sent to protect our young travelers from - from Comus, the son of Circe and Bacchus, who like his mother Circe whose potion would change men into groveling swine, also uses a potion to change men or women into beasts.
“And listen why; for I will tell you now
What never yet was heard in tale or song,
From old or modern bard, in hall or bower.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape
Crushed the sweet poison of misused wine,
After the Tuscan mariners transformed,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe's island fell. (Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun, whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine?)
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks,
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a Son
Much like his father, but his mother more,
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named:
Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,
Roving the Celtic and Iberian fields,
At last betakes him to this ominous wood,
And, in thick shelter of black shades imbowered,
Excels his mother at her mighty art;
Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,
To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst),
Soon as the potion works, their human count’nance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is I changed
Into some brutish form of wolf or bear,
Or ounce or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were.
And they, so perfect is their misery,
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.”
[lines 43-77]
Thyrsis’s mission is shown to be to protect our young travelers from the wiles of Comus, as they travel through these drear woods.
“Therefore, when any favoured of high Jove
Chances to pass through this adventurous glade,
Swift as the sparkle of a glancing star
I shoot from heaven, to give him safe convoy,
As now I do. But first I must put off
These my sky-robes, spun out of Iris’ woof,
And take the weeds and likeness of a swain
That to the service of this house belongs,
Who, with his soft pipe and smooth-dittied song,
Well knows to still the wild winds when they roar,
And hush the waving woods; nor of less faith,
And in this office of his mountain watch
Likeliest, and nearest to the present aid
Of this occasion. But I hear the tread
Of hateful steps; I must be viewless now.”
[lines 78-92]
And now we hear from Comus, the son of Circe, and his movements - at night! and in worship of ‘Cotytto’ - the goddess who was worshipped like Cybele and Bendis! and against whom the young lady must defend her chastity.
Note: Cotytto was another Phrygian sex goddess imported into Greece at that time, whose night-time festivals resembled those of Cybele and Bendis - known for their licentiousness, obscenity, and insobriety.
“The star that bids the shepherd fold
Now the top of heaven doth hold;
And the gilded car of Day
His glowing axle doth allay
In the steep Atlantic stream:
And the slope Sun his upward beam
Shoots against the dusky pole,
Pacing toward the other goal
Of his chamber in the east.
Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
Midnight shout and revelry,
Tipsy dance and jollity.
Braid your locks with rosy twine,
Dropping odours, dropping wine.
Rigour now is gone to bed;
And Advice with scrupulous head,
Strict Age, and sour Severity,
With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
We, that are of purer fire,
Imitate the starry Quire,
Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
Lead in swift round the months and years.
The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
Now to the Moon in wavering morrice move;
And on the tawny sands and shelves
Trip the pert Fairies and the dapper Elves.
By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
The Wood-Nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
What hath night to do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove;
Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
Come, let us our rites begin;
‘T is only daylight that makes sin,
Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
Of midnight torches burns! Mysterious Dame,
That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb
Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the air!
Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
Wherein thou ridest with Hecat’, and befriend
Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
Of all thy dues be done, and none left out
Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
From her cabined loop-hole peep,
And to the tell-tale Sun descry
Our concealed solemnity.
Come, knit hands, and beat the ground
In a light fantastic round.”
[lines 93 – 144]
Then Comus hears the young lady approaching, and he tells us of his plans to entrap her, while disguised as a ‘harmless villager’.
“Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
Our number may affright. Some virgin sure
(For so I can distinguish by mine art)
Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
My dazzling spells into the spongy air.
Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
And give it false presentments, lest the place
And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
And put the Damsel to suspicious flight;
Which must not be, for that’s against my course.
I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
Baited with reasons not unplausible,
Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
And hug him into snares. When once her eye
Hath met the virtue of this magic dust
I shall appear some harmless villager,
Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.”
[lines 145-167]
The two brothers are met by Thyris, disguised as a shepherd, who warns them of the danger to their sister from Comus. The young lady had become separated from her two brothers, and is befriended by Comus, also disguised as a shepherd, who tempts her, arguing over pleasure or temperance, until the brothers arrive to rescue her.
I’ll leave you to read the entire masque ‘Comus’ that can be found at Internet Archive.
This theme of freedom fighting against licentiousness would reappear, but many years later, when Milton would write his saga of Adam and Satan in ‘Paradise Lost’.
Ahhh … if only Milton could have found his future in composing other masques or plays, like another Mid-summer Night’s Dream, but, as is said, ‘life got in the way’.
[next week - part 10 - self-study]