See the following, from the prof.'s glosses for his Milton course,* on
inspire and brood in PL I, showing that DuBartas' hen is subtextually
Milton's dove, that is, by way of J.Beaumont's simile at "much like":
This something, son of nothing, in the gulf
Of its own monstrous darkness wallowing
And, strangely lost in its confounded self,
Knew neither where to go nor where to say
Being hideously besieged on every side
With Tohu’s and with Bohu’s boundless tide. [= Heb. waste and void]
…
Forth flew the eternal Dove, and tenderly
Over the floods’ blind tumult hovering,
The secret seeds of vital energy
Waked by the virtue of his fostering wing;
Much like that loving hen, whose brooding care
Doth hatch her eggs and life’s warm way prepare.
– Joseph Beaumont, Psyche, Canto VI, stanzas 117, 123
-- Jim N.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* Larger sample:
MUSE ... INSPIRE
Heavenly Muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught ... MILTON
…the Lord had filled him [= Bezaleël, the Sinaitic smith & furnisher of the
Israelites’ tabernacle] with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding,
and in knowledge ... – Exodus 35:31
Have thou the honour first, thy Lord to greet,
And joyn thy voice unto the Angel Quire,
From out his secret Altar toucht with hallow’d fire.
—Milton to himself as Isaiah-type Emmanuel poet, Nativity Ode, 26-28
But who records wars and heaven under mature Jove, / and pious heroes and
half-divine leards, / and now who sings the sacred counsels of the supreme
gods, now the internal realms bayed by the fierce dog, let hims live indeed
frugally … His youth void of crime and chaste is joined to this / by stern
morals and without stain of hand. / … Thus the one poor of feast, thus
Homer, drinker of water / carried the man of Ithaca through the vast east /
and through the monster-making palace of the daughter of Perseis and Apollo
[= Circe], / and shallows dangerous with Siren songs, / and through your
mansions, infernal king, where by dark blood / he is said to have engaged
the trooping shades. / For truly the poet is sacred to the gods, and priest
of the gods, and his hidden heart and lips breathe Jove. But if you will
know what I am doing … / I am singing the King, bringer of peace by his
divine origins, / and the blessed times promised in the sacred books, / and
the crying of our God and his stabling under the meager roof, / who with his
Father inhabits the heavenly realms; / … / and the gods suddenly destroyed
in their temples. I dedicate these gifts in truth to the birthday of
Christ, / gifts which the first light of dawn brought to me.
—Milton, Elegy 6, 55-88, tr. John Carey
It [= the kind of poem Milton is planning] was not to be obtained by the
invocation of Dame Memory and her Siren daughters [= the Muses], but by
devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich [the poet] with all
utterance and knowledge, and sends out his Seraphim with the hallowed fire
of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases.
– Milton, Reason of Church Government (compare the ending of the proem to
the Nativity Ode, supra)
To chaucer that is floure of rethoryk
In englisshe tong & excellent poete
This wot I wel no thing may I do lyk
...............................................
Noght lyketh me to labour ne to muse
Vppon these olde poysees derk
ffor crystes feith such thing schuld refuse
..................................................
Hit schold not ben a cristenmannes werk
Tho fals goddes names to renewe
.................................................
And certayn I haue tasted wonder lyte [wondrously little]
As of the welles of calliope
No wonder though I sympilly endite
Yet will I not vnto tessiphone [one of the three Furies or Erinyes or
Eumenides]
Ne to allecto ne to megare [the other two]
Besechin after craft of eloquence
But pray that god of his benignyte
My spirit enspire with his influence.
-- John Walton, Preface to his translation of Boethius
Inspire life in my wit ... –Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered, i.2, tr. Fairfax
Bacon, in Wisdom of the Ancients (De Sapientia), tells us that Orpheus
applies his "powers of persuasion and eloquence to insinuate into men’s
minds the love of virtue and equity and peace." But in another guise Orpheus
signifies religious devotion as he confounds the songs of the Sirens by
"singing and sounding forth the praises of the gods."
ADVENTUROUS
… I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song, MILTON
…that mine adventurous rime,
Circling the world may search out every clime.
– Joshua Sylvester’s Du Bartas, The Divine Weeks
IN PROSE OR RIME
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme MILTON
Things not said in prose, nor in rime. – Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, i.2,
after Boiardo, Orl. Innamorato, II.xxx.1, ne in prosa è detta, o in rima
WINGS ... BROODING
…with mighty wings outspread
Dove-like sat’st brooding on the vast abyss
And madest it pregnant; MILTON
The Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters … – Genesis 1:2
So did Gods Spirit delight it selfe a space
To move it selfe upon the floating Masse:
No other care th’Almightie’s mind possest
(If care can enter in his sacred brest).
Or, as a Henne that faine would hatch a brood,
(Some of her owne, some of adoptive blood)
Sits close thereon, and with her lively heat,
Of yellow-white balls [=eggs], doth lyve birds beget:
Even in such sort seemed the Spirit Eternall
To brood upon this Gulph: with care paternall
Quickening the Parts, inspiring power in each,
From so foule Lees, so fair a World to fetch.
— Joshua Sylvester tr., of Sallust DuBartas, Divine Weeks, I.I)
This something, son of nothing, in the gulf
Of its own monstrous darkness wallowing
And, strangely lost in its confounded self,
Knew neither where to go nor where to say
Being hideously besieged on every side
With Tohu’s and with Bohu’s boundless tide.
…
Forth flew the eternal Dove, and tenderly
Over the floods’ blind tumult hovering,
The secret seeds of vital energy
Waked by the virtue of his fostering wing;
Much like that loving hen, whose brooding care
Doth hatch her eggs and life’s warm way prepare
– Joseph Beaumont, Psyche, Canto VI, stanzas 117, 123
INSTRUCT ... KNOW
Instruct me, for Thou knowest MILTON
Now Muse, I pray thee tell—for thou knowest it—how…
– Theocritus, Idyl. xxii.116 (eipe Qea, su gar oisqa . egw d’ eterwn ...)
Tell, for I know thou know’st …
– Joshua Sylvester’s tr. of Sallust Du Bartas’ The Divine Weeks II, the
poet’s invocation of the Holy Spirit for a narration of Israelite history
after the exodus
…the Lord had filled him [= Bezaleël, the artisan] with the Spirit of God,
in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, … – Exodus 35:31
…Inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute. – Paradise Regained, I.17
ILLUMINE ... RAISE
…what in me is dark
Illumine, what is low raise and support; MILTON
Inspire life in my wit, my thoughts upraise –Tasso, Jerusalem Delivered,
i.2, tr. Fairfax
Illumine their dark soules with light divine … – Tasso, Jer. Del., viii.76,
tr. Fairfax
HEAVEN HIDES NOTHING ... NOR HELL
…Heaven hides nothing from thy view,
Nor the deep tract of Hell; MILTON
There the story of Italy … had the Lord of Fire fashioned, not unversed in
prophecy, or unknowing of the age to come; … Away from these he adds also
the abodes of Hell [Tartareas], the high gates of Dis, and the penalties of
sin… – Aeneas’s shield, as manufactured by Vulcan, in Aeneid VIII.626-28,
666-68
…the Lord had filled him [= Bezaleël, the Mosaic artisan] with the Spirit of
God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of
workmanship, and to devise curious works… – Exodus 35:31
JUSTIFY ... THE WAYS .... &c.
On Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:24:05 -0500
anne prescott <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Oh that I were younger and had more time left! I would do a book on the
>chicken and literature--or "Why Do Chickens not Cross the Road to
> Parnassus?" Or "The Wings of the Chicken: A Sequel to Henry James."
> Indeed, we hear of cosmic eggs, but not of cosmic chickens, which I think
>is unfair to mothers. But seriously, folks . . . to be fair to Du Bartas,
>he's trying (I think) to exploit some gender ambiguity of the Hebrew words
>(Im told) at the start of Genesis--what Milton uses, following Du Bartas,
>in having a brooding dove that can also impregnate. But this posting,
>before I leave for a conference on the also entertaining but non-epic John
>Donne, is to save you time by giving you the lines from Du Bartas for the
>next time you teach Milton. I might add that Milton gets to the beginning
>much faster than does Du Bartas, who goes through lots and lots of polemic
>and mulling things over before getting to the start of it all. Like
>Spenser, who of course praises the poet at the end of his Ruines of Rome,
>I really do enjoy Du Bartas (even his description of Adam before his
>rib-ectomy as "sweet hee-shee-coupled-one"), but literary tact was not his
>strong suit. In any case, Spenser, like Milton, would have read the
>following:
> So did Gods Spirit delight it selfe a space
> To move it selfe upon the floating Masse:
> No other care th'Almightie's mind possest
> (If care can enter in his sacred brest).
> Or, as a Henne that faine would hatch a brood,
> (Some of her owne, some of adoptive blood)
> Sits close thereon, and with her lively heat,
> Of yellow-white balls, doth lyve birds beget:
> Even in such sort seemed the Spirit Eternall
> To brood upon this Gulph: with care paternall
> Quickening the Parts, inspiring power in each,
> From so foule Lees, so fair a Wold to fetch. (In the ed. by
> Susan Snyder this is the First Week, First Day, ll. 319-330.)
> There follow lines on Nothing and All--so much more resonant, I
> think, after the introduction of the Zero shape/concept a while earlier.
> What we really need is an epic on the Big Bang. Anne.
>
>
> On Feb 18, 2009, at 12:36 PM, Hannibal Hamlin wrote:
>
>> How about "Is Spenser Prettier Than Milton"? (No contest, of course,
>> with Shakespeare!)
>>
>>
>>
>> On 2/17/09, Jenn Lewin <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> I hope, then, that Hannibal will write: "Spenser: Not Just a Pretty
>> Face"!
>>
>> --jenn lewin
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 7:00 PM, SIDNEY-SPENSER automatic digest
>> system <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> > There is 1 message totalling 290 lines in this issue.
>> >
>> > Topics of the day:
>> >
>> > 1. Was Spenser "fantastic rather than imaginative"?
>> >
>> > If only Anne will write Killing the Chicken, I can die a happy
>> woman. If Anne finds that title too sensationalist, she could go
>> with Milton and Poultry. Anne, if you need inspiration, I'll tell
>> you where you can find a Poultry Science building in whose soaring
>> glass lobby is a life-sized bronze statue of a tree stump on which a
>> magnificent bronze chicken stands. Embedded in the tree stump—and
>> I'm not making this up—is a bronze axe. We've always known that
>> Milton had an affinity with the sciences.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > Dot
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
>>[mailto:[log in to unmask]
>> ] On Behalf Of Hannibal Hamlin
>> > Sent: Monday, February 16, 2009 10:20 AM
>> > To: [log in to unmask]
>> > Subject: Re: Was Spenser "fantastic rather than imaginative"?
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > This is almost certainly true. In accounts of James Murray and the
>> original NED/OED project, it's clear that he relied on an
>> international network of amateur reader/contributors (including the
>> madman so wonderfully described in The Madman and the Professor).
>> Consider what these contributors are likely to have had access to --
>> not, surely, obscure pamphlets and rare books found only in a few
>> libraries in the world, but "big name authors," or at least those
>> available in nineteenth century editions.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > By the way, would anyone like to join me in encouraging Anne to
>> write the book on Milton's genius, Killing the Chicken?
>> >
>> > Hannibal
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 10:41 AM, Peter C. Herman <[log in to unmask]
>> > wrote:
>> >
>> > Ian Lancashire's work on early modern lexicography has also done
>> much to challenge the view that Shakespeare was continually coining
>> new words. If Shakespeare were as neoteric as the OED would have us
>> believe, he would not have been understood by the groundlings. The
>> OED does seem to have a bias in allocating first instances of words
>> and senses to big name authors.
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > I wonder if that might be in part because the original
>> lexicographers had to rely on memory and paper rather than
>> databases, thus making it likelier that they would refer to "big
>> name authors" rather than an obscure pamphlet from 1522 or 1564? I
>> mean, we have tools at our disposal that, obviously, they did not,
>> making it a great deal easier to trace linguistic origins.
>> >
>> > pch
>> >
>> > John Leonard
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Hannibal Hamlin
>> > Associate Professor of English
>> > The Ohio State University
>> > Burkhardt Fellow,
>> > The Folger Shakespeare Library
>> > 201 East Capitol Street SE
>> > Washington, DC 20003
>> > [log in to unmask]
>> > [log in to unmask]
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Hannibal Hamlin
>> Associate Professor of English
>> The Ohio State University
>> Burkhardt Fellow,
>> The Folger Shakespeare Library
>> 201 East Capitol Street SE
>> Washington, DC 20003
>> [log in to unmask]
>> [log in to unmask]
>
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
|
