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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
To most modern readers the pastoral setting of Milton's Lycidas is far from being an element of beauty. It is doubtful whether anyone, approaching Lycidas for the first time, fails to experience a feeling of strangeness, which must be overcome before the poem can be fully appreciated; and not infrequently the pastoral imagery continues to be felt as a defect, attracting attention to its own absurdities and thereby seriously interfering with the reader's enjoyment of the piece itself. The reason for this attitude lies in the fact that we have to-day all but forgotten the pastoral tradition and quite lost sympathy with the pastoral mood. The mass of writing to which this artificial yet strangely persistent literary fashion gave rise seems unendurably barren and insipid; to return and traverse the waste, with its dreary repetitions of conventional sentiments and tawdry imagery, is a veritable penance. Yet this, if we are to judge fairly of Lycidas, or if we are to remove the hindrances to our full enjoyment of it as poetry, is what in a measure we must do. For in Milton's eyes the pastoral element in Lycidas was neither alien nor artificial. Familiar as he was with poetry of this kind in English, Latin, Italian, and Greek, Milton' recognized the pastoral as one of the natural modes of literary expression, sanctioned by classic practice, and. recommended by not inconsiderable advantages of its own. The setting of Lycidas was to him not merely an ornament, but an essential element in the artistic composition of the poem. It tended to idealize and dignify the expression of his sorrow, and to exalt this tribute to the memory of his friend, by ranging it with a long and not inglorious line of elegiac utterances, from Theocritus and Virgil to Edmund Spenser.
page 404 note 1 See especially the annotations to Lycidas in David Masson's The Poetical Works of John Milton, London, 1894, Vol. iii; and in the Pitt Press edition of Milton's Minor Poems, ed. A. W. Verity, Cambridge, 1891. Cf. also W. P. Mustard's article in Vol. xxx of the American Journal of Philology: “Later Echoes of the Greek Bucolic Poets,” to which I have made frequent reference in the earlier part of this essay.
page 405 note 1 For an account of the origin of the Alexandrian pastoral see the extensive work of Ph. E. 'Legrand, Étude sur Théocrite, Paris, 1898; R. J. Cholmondeley, The Idyls of Theocritus, Intro.; A. Lang, Theocritus, Bion and Moschus, London, 1906, Intro. The seventh idyl of Theocritus gives a light-hearted account of an incident in the daily life of these poets and incidentally illustrates the beginning of the personal and artificial pastoral.
page 405 note 2 The chronology of Theocritus is carefully worked out by Ph. E. Le Grand, op. cit.; his results are summarized by Cholmondeley, op. cit., Intro. I am much indebted in the following criticism and throughout this essay to Professor E. K. Rand of Harvard “University.
page 405 note 3 Bucolici Grœci, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, Oxford, 1905, p. 22. The quotations from Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus are taken from Andrew Lang's excellent translation.
page 406 note 1 Vv. 63 ff. Lang, op. cit., p. 63.
page 406 note 2 Idyl iii.
page 406 note 3 Vv. 53 ff. Lang, op. cit., p. 22.
page 407 note 1 Eclogue viii.
page 407 note 2 Lang, op. cit., p. 10.
page 408 note 1 See below, p. 420.
page 409 note 1 See below, p. 416.
page 409 note 2 Tityrus, Alphesibœus, Ægon, and Amyntas bid Thyrsis enjoy the delights of nature; Mopsus asks what flirt is plaguing him; the nymphs reproach his cloudy brow and bid him not reject the joys of youth and love. There are detailed resemblances to Theocritus i.
page 409 note 3 Lang, p. 6.
page 409 note 4 Lycidas, ll. 50 ff.
page 410 note 1 Eclogue x, vv. 9 ff. The lines are as follows:
The motive appears again and again in the pastoral elegy of the Renaissance; see Mustard, op. cit., for references.
page 410 note 2 The Poems of John Milton, with Notes, London, 1859. Annotations to Lycidas, Vol. ii.
page 410 note 3 
etc. vv. 140 ff.
page 410 note 4 Lang, p. 10.
page 411 note 1 I shall have occasion to note a probable connection between Lycidas and two other elegies, the subjects of which met their death by drowning. See below, pp. 433 and 439 ff.
page 411 note 2 The passages in Milton which are directly and certainly traceable to other idyls of Theocritus are very few. Cf., however, Id. vii, 35 (
) with Lyc., 25-7. (The reference is from Mustard, op. cit., p. 235.) Verses 16-7 of Id. i (not a part of the lament) are repeated in Ep. Dam., 51-2; and the description of the cup in Id. I is echoed in Ep. Dam., 181 ff.
page 412 note 1 Bucolici Grœci, App.; Lang, op. cit.
page 412 note 2 Bucolici Grœci, pp. 122 ff.
page 412 note 3 Virgil, presumably because of this poem, assumes that he tended sheep: “Et formosus ovis ad flumina pavit Adonis” (Ec. x, v. 18).
page 412 note 4 Cf. Mustard, op. cit., pp. 275 ff., for an extensive account of the influence of this poem in the Renaissance and later. Shelley's Adonais is formally modelled on the Lament for Adonis.
page 412 note 5 Bucolici Grœci, pp. 91 ff.
page 413 note 1 Mustard, op. cit., pp. 279 ff.
page 413 note 2 The love motive is not wholly abandoned; we are told, for example, that the art of kissing has died with Bion. The psychological process of transferring to Bion the poet the attributes of a shepherd hero, may be observed in the following lines: “Not of wars, not of tears, but of Pan would he sing, and with herdsmen would he chant, and so singing he tended the herds.”
page 414 note 1 Corydon, An Elegy, In Memory of Matthew Arnold and Oxford, by Reginald Fanshawe, London, 1906.
page 414 note 2 “To others didst thou leave thy wealth, to me thy minstrelsy” (l. 97); Lang, p. 201.
page 414 note 3 Ll. 64 ff.
page 414 note 4 Ll. 161 ff.
page 415 note 1 Cf. Bion, w. 1 ff. and vv. 27-32. “Thy sudden doom, O Bion, Apollo himself lamented, …. and Echo in the rocks laments that thou art silent.”
page 415 note 2 Ll. 39 ff.
page 416 note 1 The second allusion is to Theocritus xiii, an epyllion on the story of Hylas and Heracles. Strictly speaking the poem is neither a pastoral nor an elegy.
page 416 note 2 Mustard, op. cit., pp. 281-2.
page 416 note 3 Mr. Moody in the Cambridge edition of Milton's poems (p. 321) remarks that the Epitaphium Damonis is formally an imitation of the Lament for Bion. Doubtless Milton had the Greek poem in mind when he wrote his Latin elegy; the similarity of name, as well as the lines quoted above, indicate this. But there is not a single passage in 'Milton's poem which shows unmistakably the influence of the Lament for Bion, while there are many which may be directly traced to Theocritus and Virgil. The two poems are also unlike in form; for Milton has the customary narrative setting as in Theocritus I, whereas the Lament does not purport to be sung by a shepherd at all.
page 417 note 1 Ec. iv, vv. 1 ff. “Sieilides Musæ, paulo maiora canamus!” etc.
page 419 note 1 Lines 15 ff.; cf. above, p. 417, n. 1.
page 420 note 1 Cf. Lycidas, l. 85.
page 420 note 2 I have used the Clarendon Press text of Virgil, ree. F. A. Hirtzel, Oxford, 1900.
page 421 note 1 The general resemblance between these two concluding passages, and several of the parallels quoted below, were first suggested to me by Professor Rand.
page 421 note 2 There are several echoes of Eclogue x in the Epitaphium Damonis; cf. Ec. x, vv. 55-68 with Ep. Dam. vv. 35-43; also v. 42 with v. 71, v. 8 with v. 73, v. 63 with v. 160.
page 421 note 3 The identification goes back to the time of Servius. See Connington's edition of Virgil, i, pp. 59 ff.
page 422 note 1 “Sis bonus O felixque tuis!” (v. 65). Cf. also v. 61; “amat bonus otia Daphnis.” I owe this point also to Professor Rand. The passages in Lycidas and Eclogue v should be compared with the similar one in the Epitaphium Damonis. See below, p. 446. The line “Æthera purus habet, pluvium pede reppulit arcum” and the expressions “Dexter ades, placidusque fave” serve to connect the latter with the Virgilian original.
page 423 note 1 Cf. Ec. iv, 19 ff.; Ee. v, 35-40; Æneid vi, 883-4; cf. also above, p. 416.
page 423 note 2 “Et vos, O lauri, carpam, et te, proxima myrte” (v. 54). “Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more, Ye myrtles brown” (l. 1 ff.).
page 423 note 4 Ec. vi, vv. 27-28 (directly imitated in Lycidas, ll. 33-35); and Ec. viii, v. 4.
page 423 note 5 Lycidas, l. 86, quoted below, p. 424.
page 423 note 6 Ec. vii, vv. 12-13.
page 423 note 7 Two further parallels might be given: Ec. i, 2, “musam meditaris;” cf. Lycidas, l. 66, “strictly meditate the thankless muse.” Ec. i, 84, “Maioresque cadunt altis de montibus umbræ; ”cf. Lycidas, l. 190, “And now the sun had stretched out all the hills.”
page 425 note 1 The Eclogues of Calpurnius Siculus, and M. Aurelius Nemesianus, C. H. Keene, London, 1887.
page 426 note 1 Monumenta Germaniœ Historica: Poetœ Latini, Vol. iii, rec. Traube, pp. 45 ff. I owe my acquaintance with this poem to Professor Rand.
page 428 note 1 Carmina Illustrium Poetarum Italorum, Florence, 1719, Vol. ii, pp. 257 ff.
page 428 note 2 Francisci Petrarchæ Poemata, Minora, Milan, 1829. Vol. i.
page 429 note 1 The temper of the invective is much the same: Pamphilus in Petrarch's poem addresses Mitio thus:
page 429 note 2 Eclogues ii, x, xi. The first of these, an allegory on the death of Robert of Naples (Argus), is generally suggestive of Virgil v. The consolation at the close is untouched by Christian coloring. Eclogue x is not strictly speaking a pastoral elegy, since it contains no formal lament; it is rather the story of the shepherd's loss with incidental expression of his sorrow. The subject of the poet's grief is a cherished laurel (i. e., Petrarch's Laura). His friend bids him solace himself, since the tree has been transplanted to the Elysian Fields! Eclogue XI is a kind of debate between heavenly and earthly consolation. It concludes with two contrasting laments for the dead Galatea.
page 430 note 1 Carmina Ilustrium Poetarum Italorum, vi, pp. 184 ff.
page 430 note 2 Numerous examples of the Latin elegy may be found in the Carmina Illustrium Poetarum Italorum. I have examined the following: Ludovici Alamanni Melampus, i, 450; Petri Angeli Bargæi Varchius, i, 211; Balthasaris Castilionii Alcon, iii, 259; Maphæi Barberini Julus, ii, 60; Petri Bembi Leucippi et Alconis Tumulus, ii, 123; Nicolai Parthenii Thyrsis, v, 309, Dorylas, v, 321 (both of these poems are marine elegies, modelled on Sannazaro's Phyllis); M. Hieronymi Vidæ Daphnis, xi, 4; Actii Synceri Sannazarii Phyllis, viii, 365. Other elegies may be found in the collection of Latin bucolic verse entitled, “En habes Lector Bucolicorum Autores xxxviii,” etc., Basel, Johannes Oporinus, 1546. I have not had access to this work.
page 431 note 1 For a general account of the pastoral literature of the Renais sance, especially Italian and English, see W. W. Greg's exte work, Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama, Oxford, 1906.
page 432 note 1 Loc. cit.
page 433 note 1 Loc. cit.
page 433 note 2 Vv. 91 ff. The passage is imitated in the close of the pastoral lament by Nicholaus Parthenius, loc. cit. After declaring that Thyrsis is following the happy fishes in Elysium, “felicior ipse,” Mopsus addresses him as a god:
page 434 note 1 Vv. 72-75.
page 434 note 2 She is mentioned twice by Virgil: Æneid v, 240 and 825.
page 434 note 3 Nevertheless Milton's debt to Sannazaro is comparatively slight. Such a sweeping statement as the following from the Dictionary of National Biography (Sub King, Edward) wholly disregards the existence of a conventional elegiac type: “Milton probably modelled his poem after an Italian (sic) eclogue entitled, ‘Phyllis,’ in which Phyllis’ death is bemoaned by a shepherd named Lycidas.”
page 435 note 1 The influence of Sannazaro may be traced in England in Phineas Fletcher's Piscatorie Eglogues, which were published only four years before Lycidas.
page 435 note 2 “ Ergasto sovra la sepultura;” cf. also Ronsard, Ec. vi, “Sur la mort de Marguerite de France,” Œuvres complètes … par M. Prosper Blanchemain, Paris, 1860, t. iv, p. 22; and Spenser's November eclogue in the Shepheards Calender.
page 436 note 1 Ronsard, op. cit., p. 22.
page 436 note 2 Œuvres Complètes de Clément Marot, par B. Saint-Marc. Paris, 1879. i. pp. 485 ff.
page 437 note 1 Eclogue v in Sannazaro's Arcadia contains a passage which Milton may have had in mind when he wrote the concluding lines of Lycidas:
Cf. Lycidas, ll. 174-5:
page 438 note 1 The vernacular works of Luigi Alemanni, Antonio Pereira, Jean-Antoine Baïf contain pastoral elegies. Others may be found in the pastoral collection of G. Ferrarlo, Poesie Pastorali e Rusticali, Milan, 1808.
page 439 note 1 See O. Reissert, Spenser und die frühere Bukolik, Anglia ix, p. 205.
page 439 note 2 January, June, December; Colin's hard case is also discussed by Hobbinol in the April eclogue.
page 442 note 1 October, ll. 13 ff.
page 442 note 2 Ll. 64 ff.
page 442 note 3 Ll. 136 ff.
page 443 note 1 Cf. November, ll. 37-8:
and Lycidas, ll. 9-10:
For a similar repetition see Astrophel, ll. 6-8. The phrase “scorn of homely shepheard's quill” (June, l. 67), seems to be echoed in Milton's “homely slighted shepheard's trade” (Lycidas, l. 65).
page 443 note 2 The latest account of the formal eclogue in English from the time of Spenser to the middle of the seventeenth century is Dr. H. E. Cory's article, The Golden Age of the Spenserian Pastoral, Publications of the M. L. A., xxv, 2. Cf. also Greg. op. cit., and Oskar Sommer, Erster Versuch über die englische Hirtendichtung. Marburg, 1888.
page 444 note 1 First published in 1595; most of the poems must have been written shortly after 1586. The series is reprinted in the Cambridge Edition of Spenser, Boston, 1908, pp. 699 ff.
page 444 note 2 Mr. W. W. Greg, op. cit., p. 117, remarks that the only resemblance between the two elegies is the fact that the subjects of both were drowned; but Browne's poem contains no allusion to the circumstances of Manwood's death. One of the upholders of a connection between the two poems is Miss Katrina Windscheid, Die englische Hirtendichtung von 1579-1625, Halle, 1895. The following is a fair specimen of the parallel passages cited by her in proof:
The most striking resemblance is the closing stanza; but both poets are merely following the conventional Virgilian close.
page 445 note 1 The Shepherd's Oracle by Francis Quarles, written a few years before Lycidas but not published till 1646, contains an abundance of religious satire.
page 446 note 1 Vv. 125 ff. and 155 ff. The account in the Epitaphium of the former association of the two shepherds is very similar to that in Lycidas (ll. 22 ff.). The consolations have some specific resemblances apparently not due to their common original. There is also in the Epitaphium one pretty clear reminiscence of the phrasing of Lycidas:
In both poems Milton refers to the digression on his own aspirations as being in a higher strain. Ep. 160; Lyc. 87.