Lycidas
by
John Milton
(As
a Pastoral Elegy)
Lycidas is a poem by John Milton, written in
1637 as a pastoral elegy. The word ‘pastoral’ is derived from the Greek word
‘pastor’ which means to “gaze”. Hence pastoral poetry is a poetry which deals
with the life and doings, loves, joys and sorrows of shepherds and
shepherdesses and other humble dwellers of the country side. In a pastoral
elegy the poet mourns the death of some friend or relative in the guise of a
shepherd mourning the death of another shepherd. Theocritus, Bions, Moschus and
Virgil were the great writers of pastoral elegies among the ancients. Their
pastorals are characterized by a rare freshness and first-hand observation of
Nature. They capture the real beauty and charm of rural life. With the
Renaissance, the pastoral was widely practiced in Italy and other European
countries, and from Europe the vogue of the pastoral reached England. Spenser
and Sidney were the pioneers of this tradition in England. In their hands, the
pastoral has much of the freshness of the early Greek masters, but in the hands
of the imitators of Spenser and Sidney, pastoralism became a mere convention,
something merely bookish and artificial.
In
Lycidas, Milton has followed the pastoral tradition. It is a pastoral elegy.
The very name ‘Lycidas’ is the conventional name for a shepherd and it
frequently occurs in the pastoral elegies of Theocritus and Bions. The pastoral
machinery has been made full use of by the poet. He speaks of himself as a
shepherd and of Edward King as another shepherd both of whom were nursed
together and who fed their flocks together:
For we were nursed
upon the self-same hill,
Fed the same flock,
by fountain, shade and rill :
Together both, ere
the high lawns appeared
Under the opening
eyelids of the Morn,
We drove a-field, and
both together heard
What time the
gray-fly winds her sultry horn,
Battening our flocks
with the fresh dews of night,
Oft till the star
that rose at evening bright
Toward Heaven’s
descent had sloped his westering wheel
Meanwhile the rural
ditties were not mute,
Tempered to the oaten
flute;
Rough Satyrs danced,
and Fauns with cloven heel
From the glad sound
would not be absent long;
And
old Damaetas loved to hear our song.
Further,
in the pastoral tradition there are charming descriptions of the beauty of the
countryside. A thousand flowers bloom and beautify the landscape:
Bring the rathe
primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe,
and pale Jessamine,
The white pink, and
the pansy freaked with jet,
The glowing violent,
The musk rose, and
the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan
that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that
sad embroidery wears;
Bid amaranthus all
his beauty shed,
And daffodillies full
their cups with tears,
To
strew the laureate hearse where Lycidas lies.
The
passage is characterized by first hand observation and its freshness and charm
are beyond question.
Again,
true to the convention of the pastoral elegy, Milton introduces a procession of
mourners mourning the death of their beloved Lycidas. All Nature-the woods, the
caves, the echoes-mourns the death of Lycidas. Triton, “the herald of the sea”,
Camus, ‘reverend Sire’, St. Peter, ‘the Pilot of the Galilean Lake’, are other
mourners introduced by the poet. The introduction of St. Peter, also provides the
poet with an occasion for a fierce invective against the corruption and
degeneration of contemporary Church. Such denunciation is also a part of the
usual machinery of the pastoral elegy. We find such denunciations in Spenser’s
Shepherd’s Calender and in the elegies of a number of Italian poets.
The
elegy ends according to accepted tradition on a note of hope and consolation.
For Lycidas is not really dead, and “the woeful shepherds” should weep no more.
Like the sun, he would rise out of the sea in which he has been drowned, and
having reached in the blessed kingdom of Heaven would be entertained by all the
saints. Or he would become the, “Genius of the shore”, near which he was drowned:
Now, Lycidas, the
shepherds weep no more;
Hence forth thou art
the Genius of the shore,
In thy large
recompense, and shalt be good
To
all that wander in that perilous flood.
In
short, Milton in Lycidas has followed the pastoral tradition in its entirety.
It is a pastoral dedicated to the purposes of elegy and lament. Milton might
have owed much to the pastorals of Spenser and other writers, but by his lament
he revived and enriched the pastoral tradition. A number of modern works have
been inspired by Milton’s elegy. The authors of Adonais and Thyrsis “fed on the
self-same hill” as the author of Lycidas; they too revive echoes of the
Sicilian shepherd-music; and apart from such general similarities as we should
expect where writers have chosen the same vehicle of expression, each has at
least one point of contact with Milton. Thyrsis, like Lycidas, presents an
idealized picture of university-life, and perhaps of sincerity and true feeling
begotten of love for the scenes described, the advantage rests with Arnold. In
Adonais, Shelley’s invective against the enemies of Keats recalls Milton’s
onslaught on the church; a subsidiary theme has kindled the fire of personal
feeling in each poem, and neither can be regarded as the consecration of
perfect friendship.
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