John Milton Prose

Major Writings on Liberty, Politics, Religion, and Education

John Milton, David Loewenstein, David Loewenstein

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118325643
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Regarded by many as the equal of Shakespeare in poetic imagination and expression, Milton was also a prolific writer of prose, applying his potent genius to major issues of domestic, religious and political liberty. This superbly annotated new publication is the most authoritative single-volume anthology yet of Milton's major prose works.

• Uses Milton's original language, spelling and punctuation
• Freshly and extensively annotated
• Notes provide unrivalled contextual analysis as well as illuminating the wealth of Milton's allusions and references
• Will appeal to a general readership as well as to scholars across the humanities

1

PROLUSIONS VI AND VII

PREFATORY NOTE

Milton’s Prolusions are academic exercises or orations delivered while he was a student at Christ’s College, Cambridge. The Latin word prolusio refers to a preliminary exercise, trial, or essay. These exercises are based on his intensive rhetorical training, which sharpened his skills at verbal persuasion: the ability, as Jesus observes in Milton’s late poem Paradise Regained, to employ “winning words to conquer willing hearts” (I, 222). Humanist rhetorical training stressed the practice of arguing questions from both sides (the ability to argue in utramque partem), and the Prolusions display Milton’s ability to debate two sides of an issue as he also strives to win the goodwill of his audience. Milton is a versatile rhetorical performer in these early prose texts, much as he is in the English and Latin prose works he published during the decades of the English Revolution.

Milton would later publish seven Prolusions with his Latin correspondence in 1674 (in the last prose volume published in his lifetime), no doubt because they reveal his early development as a writer obsessed with his evolving sense of authorship. Prolusions VI and VII display a range of Milton’s diverse rhetorical and verbal skills: his eloquence, wit, verbal playfulness, and bantering, sometimes grotesque undergraduate humor. They also reveal his keen interests in mythography, history, educational reform, and, of course, the aspirations and vocation of the poet.

Addressed to Milton’s fellow students, Prolusion VI contains three parts, only two of which appear here because the third section is Milton’s English poem, “At a Vacation Exercise in the College”: part one is a mock oration in Latin prose, delivered in the paradoxical and ironic spirit of Erasmus’s Praise of Folly and contending that light-hearted entertainments do not harm philosophical studies; part two, entitled “Prolusio” (“The Prolusion”), elaborates and deflates the argument with its lively ­display of learned but coarse undergraduate humor and jokes (with allusions to members of the College), while satirizing vapid university scholastic exercises. Moreover, the second part ­self-consciously calls attention to Milton’s early literary identity as he comments on his change of title from “Lady” to “Father.” The Prolusion may have been performed before his fellow students in early July 1628; or it may have been performed the first week of July 1631. (See the biography of Milton by Campbell and Corns, pp. 58–9, for discussion of the Prolusion’s date.) The genre of Prolusion VI has been established as a “salting,” an initiation ritual held in the College dining hall, as the year’s freshmen were inducted to sophomore status in front of their seniors; in this case, Milton participated as master of ceremonies and inventive orator.

Delivered in the chapel of Christ’s College (possibly in the autumn term of 1631) to an audience of students and fellows, Prolusion VII vigorously articulates a number of important themes in Milton’s literary career: his eloquent commitment to humanist learning and the power of rhetoric; his disparagement of the university curriculum; his expression of the restless aspirations and wide-ranging curiosity characteristic of the Renaissance; and his articulation of the extraordinary heights that might be obtained by means of knowledge in all the arts and sciences (“He will indeed seem to be one whose rule and dominion the stars obey”). Also voiced here are the high Miltonic expectations associated with achieving poetic ambition: these include intense devotion to study; the value of solitude and contemplation; keeping the mind and body uncontaminated and living temperately; and the young Milton’s fervent yearning to possess the powers of the mythic poet, musician, and prophet Orpheus.

The translations of Prolusions VI and VII are taken from Complete Prose Works of John Milton, 8 volumes, edited by Don M. Wolfe et al. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1953–82), Volume I, pp. 214–306. Used by permission of Yale University Press.

Prolusion VI

DELIVERED IN THE COLLEGE SUMMER VACATION, BUT IN THE PRESENCE OF ALMOST THE WHOLE BODY OF STUDENTS, AS IS CUSTOMARY
(i) THE ORATION

Sportive Exercises on occasion are not inconsistent with philosophical Studies

On my return from that city which is the chief of all cities,¹ Members of the University,² filled (I had almost said “to repletion”) with all the good things which are to be found there in such abundance, I looked forward to enjoying once more a spell of cultured leisure, a mode of life in which, it is my belief, even the souls of the blessed find delight. I fully intended at last to bury myself in learning and to devote myself day and night to the charms of philosophy; for the alternation of toil and pleasure usually has the effect of annihilating the boredom brought about by satiety and of making us the more eager to resume our interrupted tasks. Just as I was warming to my work there came a sudden summons and I was dragged away by the yearly celebration of our ancient custom, and commanded to transfer that zeal, which I had intended to devote to the acquisition of knowledge, to foolery and the invention of new jests—as if the world were not already full of fools, as if that famous Ship of Fools,³ as renowned in song as the Argo herself,⁴ had been wrecked, or finally as if there were not matter enough already to make even Democritus laugh.⁵

But I ask your pardon, my hearers; for though I have spoken somewhat too freely, the custom which we celebrate to-day is assuredly no foolish one, but on the contrary most commendable, as I intend to make plain forthwith. And if Junius Brutus,⁶ that second founder of Rome and great avenger of the lusts of kings, could bring himself to disguise his almost godlike mind and wonderful natural talents under the semblance of idiocy, there is assuredly no reason why I should be ashamed to play the wise fool for a while, especially at the bidding of him whose duty it is, like the aediles’ at Rome,⁷ to organise these shows, which are almost a regular custom. I was further strongly induced and persuaded to undertake this office by the new-found friendliness towards me of you who are fellow-students of my own college. For when, some months ago, I was to make an academic oration before you, I felt sure that any effort of mine would have but a cold reception from you, and would find in Aeacus or Minos a more lenient judge than in any one of you.⁸ But quite contrary to my expectation, contrary indeed to any spark of hope I may have entertained, I heard, or rather I myself felt, that my speech was received with quite unusual applause on every hand, even on the part of those who had previously shown me only hostility and dislike, because of disagreements concerning our studies. A generous way indeed of displaying rivalry, and one worthy of a royal nature! For while friendship itself is often wont to misinterpret what is really free from faults, on this occasion keen and biting enmity was kind enough to construe in a more gentle and lenient spirit than I deserved both my mistakes, which may have been many, and my rhetorical failures, which were doubtless not a few. On this one occasion and in this one instance mad fury seemed to become sane, and by this action to free itself from the imputation of lunacy.

I am quite overcome with pride and joy at finding myself surrounded on all sides by such an assembly of learned men; and yet, when I take stock of myself and turning my eyes inward contemplate in my own heart the meagre powers I possess, I blush to myself and a sudden uprush of sadness overwhelms and chokes my rising joy.

But, gentlemen, do not, I beg of you, desert me as I lie here fallen, and stricken by your eyes as by lightning. Let the soft breeze of your goodwill refresh my fainting spirit, as well it can, and warm it into life again; so shall my sickness, thanks to you, be less acute, and the remedy, since it is you who apply it, the more willingly and gladly accepted; so that it would be a true pleasure to me often to faint thus, if I might as often be revived and restored by you. But what matchless power, what marvellous virtue is yours, which like Achilles’ spear, the gift of Vulcan, at once inflicts the wound and heals it!⁹ For the rest, let no one wonder that I triumph, as though exalted to heaven, at finding so many men eminent for their learning, the very flower as it were of the University, gathered together here; for I can scarce believe that a greater number flocked of old to Athens to hear those two supreme orators, Demosthenes and Aeschines, contending for the crown of eloquence,¹⁰ or that such felicity ever fell to the lot of Hortensius at any declamation of his,¹¹ or that so great a company of cultured men ever graced a speech of Cicero’s.¹² So that with however poor success I perform my task, it will yet be no mean honour to me merely to have opened my lips before so large and crowded an assembly of our most eminent men. And by heaven, I cannot help flattering myself a little that I am, as I think, far more fortunate than Orpheus or Amphion; for they did but supply the trained and skilful touch to make the strings give forth their sweet harmony, and the exquisite music was due as much to the instrument itself as to their apt and dexterous handling of it. But if I win any praise here to-day, it will be entirely and truly my own, and the more glorious in proportion as the creations of the intellect are superior to manual skill. Besides, Orpheus and Amphion used to attract an audience consisting only of rocks and wild beasts and trees, and if any human beings came, they were at best but rude and rustic folk;¹³ but I find the most learned men altogether engrossed in listening to my words and hanging on my lips. Lastly, those rustics and wild beasts used to follow after the stringed music which they already knew well and had often heard before; you have been drawn hither and held fast here by expectation alone.

But, Members of the University, I would before all have you know that I have not spoken thus in a spirit of boastfulness. For I only wish that such a stream of honeyed, or rather nectared, eloquence might be granted me, if but for this once, as of old ever steeped and as it were celestially bedewed the great minds of Athens and of Rome; would that I could suck out all the innermost marrow of persuasion, pilfer the notebooks of Mercury himself,¹⁴ and empty all the coffers of wit, that I might produce something worthy of such great expectations, so notable a concourse, and so polished and refined an audience. So behold, my hearers, whither my consuming desire and longing to please you drives me and carries me away: all unexpectedly I find myself wafted in an ambition which is, however, a righteous one, and a virtuous sacrilege, if there can be such a thing.

Certainly I do not consider that I need beg and implore the help of the Muses, for I find myself surrounded by men in whom the Muses and the Graces are incarnate,¹⁵ and it seems to me that Helicon and all the other shrines of the Muses have poured forth their nurslings to celebrate this day,¹⁶ so that one might well believe that the laurels of Parnassus pine and fade for lack of them.¹⁷ Therefore it will surely be useless to seek the Muses, the Graces, and the Loves in any other spot in all the world than this.¹⁸ If so, Barbarity, Error, Ignorance, and all that tribe which the Muses loathe must needs take flight with all speed at sight of you, and hide themselves in a far distant clime. And then, why should not every barbarous, vulgar, or outworn word or phrase be forthwith banished from my speech, and I myself become straightway eloquent and accomplished, through the working of your influence and secret inspiration?

However that may be, I entreat you, my hearers, not to grudge a little of your time to my frivolities, for even the gods themselves are said often to have laid aside for the moment the cares of the commonwealth of heaven and to have been present as spectators of the wars of puny man. Sometimes, indeed, the stories tell, they did not disdain humble homes, but accepted the hospitality of the poor and gladly made a meal of beans and herbs.¹⁹ So too I beg and beseech you, my kind hearers, to accept what I can offer as...