Also, there's Milton's morning lactation. Perhaps he is not pouring the poem out as is usually thought; he is nourishing his "child." And of course the book/baby metaphor can be reversed, as in Jonson's "best piece of poetry" (I.e., his son Benjamin).

From: Supriya Chaudhuri <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Reply-To: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Date: Fri, 14 Feb 2014 14:53:43 -0600
To: "[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
Subject: Re: Complaints about envy in Elizabethan dedications


On the other hand, babies may not be defenceless: think of Jonson's dedication to Volpone, 'not my youngest infant but hath come into the world with all his teeth'.
Supriya

On 14 Feb 2014 22:08, "Hannibal Hamlin" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
This makes good sense, yes. Does Greek have anything like the "conceive/conception" pun? Presumably also where the English idiom being "pregnant" with thought comes from? (And Iago's great "I have't. It is engendered. Hell and night/ Must bring this monstrous birth to the world's light.")

Hannibal


On Fri, Feb 14, 2014 at 10:57 AM, andrew zurcher <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Book as baby probably traces back, through many intermediate links, to Plato's *Symposium*, don't you think?

And probably Plato was using some other person's hackneyed idea. Here is Aristophanes' Chorus from The Clouds, from 423 BC. His plays and their manuscripts are his children, here illegitimate children exposed and left for other mothers to raise:

CHORUS
Spectators, I will freely declare to you the truth, by Bacchus, who nurtured me! So may I conquer, and be accounted skillful, as that, deeming you to be clever spectators, and this to be the cleverest of my comedies, I thought proper to let you first taste that comedy, which gave me the greatest labour. And then I retired from the contest defeated by vulgar fellows, though I did not deserve it. These things, therefore, I object to you, a learned audience, for whose sake I was expending this labour. But not even thus will I ever willingly desert the discerning portion of you. For since what time my Modest Man and my Rake were very highly praised here by an audience, with whom it is a pleasure even to hold converse, and I (for I was still a virgin, and it was not lawful for me as yet to have children) exposed my offspring, and another girl took it up, and owned it, and you generously reared and educated it, from this time I have had sure pledges of your good will toward me. Now, therefore, like that well-known Electra, has this comedy come seeking, if haply it meet with an audience so clever, for it will recognize, if it should see, the lock of its brother. But see how modest she is by nature, who, in the first place, has come, having stitched to her no leathern phallus hanging down, red at the top, and thick, to set the boys a laughing; nor yet jeered the bald-headed, nor danced the cordax; nor does the old man who speaks the verses beat the person near him with his staff, keeping out of sight wretched ribaldry; nor has she rushed in with torches, nor does she shout iou, iou; but has come relying on herself and her verses. And I, although so excellent a poet, do not give myself airs, nor do I seek to deceive you by twice and thrice bringing forward the same pieces; but I am always clever at introducing new fashions, not at all resembling each other, and all of them clever; who struck Cleon in the belly when at the height of his power, and could not bear to attack him afterward when he was down. But these scribblers, when once Hyperbolus has given them a handle, keep ever trampling on this wretched man and his mother. Eupolis, indeed, first of all craftily introduced his Maricas, having basely, base fellow, spoiled by altering my play of the Knights, having added to it, for the sake of the cordax, a drunken old woman, whom Phrynichus long ago poetized, whom the whale was for devouring. Then again Hermippus made verses on Hyperbolus; and now all others press hard upon Hyperbolus, imitating my simile of the eels. Whoever, therefore, laughs at these, let him not take pleasure in my attempts; but if you are delighted with me and my inventions, in times to come you will seem to be wise."
(Aristophanes, THE CLOUDS, transl. Hickie, ll, 518-62)


az



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Hannibal Hamlin
Associate Professor of English
Author of The Bible in Shakespeare, now available through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press at http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199677610.do
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