Lycidas

Headnote and Lines 1-14

In the headnote, which was added in the 1645 edition of the poem, Milton states that the poem is a “monody,” that is, a lament recited or sung by a single voice. (This is in spite of the fact that the poem features several different voices.) He says that it is for a friend who drowned on the Irish seas in 1637. This is a reference to Edward King, a fellow student of Milton’s at Cambridge, who drowned on a visit to his native Ireland. Milton also states that the elegy will expose the corrupt clergy of the Anglican Church and bring about their downfall.

The laurels the speaker (the country swain) picks represent the crown of poetry bestowed by the god Apollo, and myrtles represent Venus, the goddess of love, who is often shown with a myrtle crown or wreath. Ivy is associated with Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, and also in Christian tradition with love and immortality. The swain picks these plants even though they are not yet ripe (Line 3) because Lycidas is dead before his prime and no one who is left is his equal. Therefore, Lycidas must not go unmourned; tears must be shed for him as his reward (Line 14).

Lines 15-24

The “Sisters of the sacred well” whom the speaker addresses are the nine Muses who were said to dwell in springs and wells. He hopes that his own passing might be marked in similar fashion by another poet, “some gentle muse” (Line 19). In the last two lines of this section, the swain describes how he and Lycidas, as country dwellers, were nourished by the same hills, fountains, and flocks. Their lives were so similar.

Lines 25-36

In this stanza, the swain elaborates on the final two lines of the previous stanza, using the conventions of the pastoral elegy. He and Lycidas would roam through the upland fields at dawn and then hear the buzzing of the gray-fly and feed their flock until night, when Venus, the evening star, rises. All the time they would sing with their panpipes (“th’oaten flute” [Line 33]), which were pipes or flutes associated with the god Pan and were traditionally played by shepherds. (“Oaten” refers to the fact that they were made from the straw of the oat plant.) The satyrs and fauns that dance are mythological creatures with mostly human forms but they often had goat-like ears, a tail, and horns and were said to be lustful. Fauns were also nature spirits that resembled satyrs. Damaetas, who loves to hear the shepherds’ song (Line 36), is a name that often occurs in pastoral poetry. It may refer here to one of Milton’s tutors at Cambridge.

Lines 37-49

These lines register a marked change in tone. Those happy days of song and companionship are gone, and the whole of nature mourns due to Grief and the Transience of Life. Now that death has intruded, the shepherd expresses himself in a series of analogies that come naturally to him as an inhabitant of the country. He compares his loss first to the canker that kills the rose. This is the cankerworm, a kind of caterpillar that is a common pest. A second analogy that occurs to the shepherd likens Lycidas’s death to the “taint-worm” (Line 46), a parasite that affects calves or “weanlings” (Line 50). Last, he compares the loss of Lycidas to the killing effect of frost on flowers.

Lines 50-63

In his grief and frustration, the swain begins to seek answers as to why Lycidas had to perish. He asks where were the nymphs or nature spirits when Lycidas drowned. Why did they not protect him? At the critical moment, they were nowhere to be found. They were not on the mountains (“steeps” [Line 52]) where the ancient Druids lie. The Druids were among the leaders of the ancient Celts in Britain. The swain has in mind their function as poets and singers, or “bards” [Line 53]), who likely celebrated in harp and song the successes of their warriors and other leaders.

This leads the swain to his next thought, that the nymphs were not on Anglesey either. Anglesey is an island off the northwest coast of Wales, where Druids once lived. The nymphs seemed also to have deserted the vicinity of the River Dee (“Deva” [Line 55]), which flows mostly in northern Wales but also in parts of England including Chester. Edward King drowned on his way from Chester to Ireland. The Dee is a “wizard,” that is a magical stream (Line 55), because its apparently inexplicable fluctuations cause prosperity or calamity for the surrounding land. “Deva” is the Roman name for the river, which means “divine” or “goddess,” thus showing that, according to ancient belief, divine beings dwelled there. All these named places are near to where King was located in his final days and near to where he drowned.

Then, the swain checks himself: There is no point in protesting or asking questions. Even if the nymphs had been present in those sacred spots, they would not have been able to save Edward King. The swain explains his meaning by describing, in the six lines that conclude this stanza (Lines 58-63), the fate of Orpheus, the renowned minstrel of Greek legend who could charm all of nature with his song. Even the Muse could not save Orpheus. The Muse referred to here is Calliope, the mother of Orpheus. Orpheus was attacked by a mob of women (maenads or bacchantes) and torn apart. They threw his severed head into the river Hebrus, where it floated downstream to Lesbos in the Aegean Sea. It seems to the shepherd narrator that nature is hostile or at least indifferent to the fate of the divine or semidivine singer/poet, in whatever form he might appear, from Edward King to the Druids to Orpheus.

Lines 64-84

The theme of the futility of human endeavor—the poet’s especially—when set against the powerful forces of fate continues in the first part of these lines. The speaker suggests it might be better for the poet (in the guise of the shepherd) just to seek pleasurable amusements and diversions with attractive shepherdesses such as Amaryllis and Neaera—two conventional names for women with whom a shepherd might idle away some pleasant time. The fame that the poet seeks, the desire for which leads him to scorn such pleasures and devote his attention to perfecting his chosen art, eludes him because death finds him first: “the blind Fury with ‘th’abhorred shears / […] slits the thin spun life” (Lines 75-76). The figure Milton refers to is actually Atropos, one of the three Fates. The Fates are female goddesses who spin the web of human destiny. Atropos cuts the thread of life with scissors. Due to grief and the perceived injustice of the poet’s fate, Milton turns Atropos into a Fury—a vengeful female spirit.

Now comes consolation and a different perspective entirely. The turn of thought begins at Line 76 with the sudden interruption of the swain’s thoughts by the words of Phoebus Apollo, the Greek god of music and poetry. Apollo states that the poet, in death, does receive the longed-for praise and fame, not on earth but in heaven; he receives it from Jove himself. Jove is the ultimate judge, and the poets who labored long on earth will receive their just reward (“meed” [Lines 84]). This declaration, which seems to assert a kind of divine justice that operates in spite of the tragic loss, concludes the first movement of the poem.

Lines 85-102

The narrating swain returns to his investigation of Lycidas’s death. It seems that Apollo’s words have not offered him solace enough. He wants to know more details of the cause of the man’s death. In an apostrophe (a direct address to an inanimate thing or abstract quality), he addresses Arethusa, a former nymph who became a fountain or spring in Sicily, which was long associated with Theocritus, an ancient Greek writer of pastorals. Then, he apostrophizes Mincius, a river in Lombardy that is associated with the pastoral verse of Virgil.

The swain says that in the previous stanza his song entered the mode of epic poetry (“higher mood” [Line 87]) but now he is returning to the pastoral. He hears the voice of Triton, a sea god who is often shown with a trumpet. Triton has appeared at the request of Neptune, god of the sea. Triton testifies that Neptune had no part in Lycidas’s death. The winds and waves were not involved in the shipwreck; they know nothing of what happened.

Next, Aeolus, the god of the winds, says there were no winds or storms. (He is referred to as Hippotades, as he was the son of Hippotas.) Also, the nymph Panope and her sisters were playing in the smooth water. These sources tell the swain that the ship sank because it was built at the unluckiest time, during an eclipse, and was thus under a curse. The tragic incident was not due to malice of the gods or neglect of the nature gods, but to bad luck. This is hardly much consolation for the swain who has lost his friend, and it raises once more The Question of Divine Justice.

Lines 103-131

Continuing the parade of mythological personages, Camus appears, personifying the River Cam, which flows through Cambridge. He is an unimpressive, slow-moving figure wearing a bonnet and a mantle. On the mantle is a mark representing a “sanguine flower” (Line 106). This is the hyacinth, and in this context sanguine means “blood red.” Apollo created the flower from the blood of Hyacinthus, a beautiful youth whom he loved but unfortunately killed in an accident with a discus.

Camus can offer neither knowledge nor consolation. He does not know any more than anyone else, and indeed asks, just as the swain has done, who is responsible for the death of Lycidas. He laments, “Ah! who hath reft [stolen] […] my dearest pledge” (Line 107), meaning Lycidas.

Milton now embarks on a digression in which he lambasts the failings of the Anglican Church (See: Background). The vehicle for this denunciation is St. Peter, who is “The Pilot of the Galilean lake” (Line 109). Peter was among the first disciples of Jesus; he was originally a fisher. He holds the keys to heaven, which, according to the gospel of St. Matthew (Chapter 16, Verse 19), Jesus gave to him.

Milton presents St. Peter as a bishop of the church, wearing a miter, a headdress that symbolizes a position of authority. St. Peter grumbles that he would have preferred it if Lycidas could have been spared, and death had taken instead some of the many English bishops who are not worthy of the offices they hold. He rages against them. Using the metaphor of the shepherd and his flock that occurs in the gospels, these bishops are the ones who “Creep and intrude, and climb into the fold” (Line 115). The allusion is to the gospel of John, Chapter 10, Verses 1-2: “He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.” Thus, Milton offers a sharp contrast between the existing clergy, who are bad shepherds, and the Good Shepherd, who is presented in John’s gospel.

The only thing these renegade shepherds care about is maneuvering for their own advantage, pushing more worthy people aside (Lines 116-18). Using a literary device known as catachresis (a paradoxical figure of speech), St. Peter refers to these bishops as “Blind mouths!” (Line 119). This conveys both their spiritual “blindness” and the ignorance of the words that come out of their mouths. They know nothing, and—continuing the shepherd metaphor—they cannot even carry a “sheep-hook” (Line 120), a shepherd’s crook which resembles a bishop’s staff, or crozier. They have learned nothing of what is required of them (Lines 120-21).

St. Peter continues his tirade against the bishops for another 10 lines. They cannot even play their pipes in a pleasing manner. Their “lean and flashy songs / Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw” (Lines 123-24), and the “hungry sheep” are neglected (Line 125) and left to rot as corruption spreads. Moreover, the bishops’ neglect of their duty allows a predator into the sheepfold, “the grim wolf with privy paw” (Line 128) by which Milton means Roman Catholicism. The phrase “and nothing said” (Line 129) refers to Milton’s belief, which he shared with the Puritans, that Archbishop Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury and head of the Anglican Church, did nothing to stop the Catholic infiltration and secretly encouraged it (See: Background).

In the final two lines of this section, St. Peter states that the bishops, and likely the infiltrating Roman Catholics, will face divine justice. There is a “two-handed engine at the door” (Line 130), with which they will be punished. This image has been much discussed, with readers speculating about what this formidable weapon might be. Some say it might be a sword so large that it requires two hands to wield. It might also refer to the two-edged sword in the book of Revelation, Chapter 1, Verse 16, which comes out of the mouth of Christ. It could be the executioner’s axe (Archbishop Laud would be beheaded in 1645) or the two houses of Parliament (which by 1645 had expelled many bishops from the church). Whatever Milton had in mind, there is no mistaking the dreadful and final nature of the punishment, since the engine “Stands ready to smite once, and smite no more” (Line 131). This stark climax concludes the second movement of the elegy.

Lines 132-164

Consolation now alternates with grief. Milton begins by returning to his pastoral theme and providing a list of a variety of flowers—“bells and flow’rets of a thousand hues” (Line 135)—that will be used to deck Lycidas’s bier. The flowers will come from the vales on which Sirius, the Dog Star (“swart star” [Line 138]) looks. Other flowers mentioned include primrose, crow-toe (wood hyacinth), jessamine, violet, musk-rose, woodbine, cowslips, daffodils, and also amaranthus, which has been a symbol of immortality since ancient times. It comes from a Greek word amarantos, which means “unfading.” Milton refers to it in his epic poem Paradise Lost as growing in the Garden of Eden (Book 3, Lines 353-55). The amaranthus, however, will wither in grief for Lycidas (Line 149).

Imagining all these flowers on the bier serves a particular purpose. It eases the mourners’ grief by adopting a “false surmise” (Line 153) that the body of Lycidas has been recovered and can receive a fitting and proper burial. The narrating swain then speculates about all the places where Lycidas’s bones may have been swept. These include the Hebrides, which are islands off the west coast of Scotland, and Land’s End, the farthest southwestern tip of England, in the county of Cornwall, where the legendary giant Bellerus rests (Line 160). This is also near St. Michael’s Mount, where, in Milton’s vision, the saint guards England from Catholic enemies in Europe. He names two places in particular: Namancos, near Cape Finisterre, Spain, and Bayonne, near Viga in northern Spain. The swain tells the “Angel” (Line 163)—St. Michael is an Archangel—to look “homeward” now in grief and tribute to Lycidas.

Finally, the speaker addresses the dolphins, sea creatures who were often thought to exert a protective power over ships, appealing to them to bring Lycidas’s body gently to land (“waft the hapless youth” [Line 164]).

Lines 165-185

This section will conclude the third movement of the elegy and provide it with another climax, consisting mostly of a Christian vision drawn from the book of Revelation. The speaker announces that the time for weeping is past because Lycidas is not dead. In a simile, the speaker compares Lycidas to the sun (the “day-star” [Line 168]) which, like Lycidas, sinks to the ocean bed (or so it appears) but rises again in the morning. So it is with Lycidas, who lives again thanks to the power of “him that walked the waves” (that is, Jesus, in the gospel of Matthew, Chapter 14, Verses 12-26), and now hears the “unexpressive nuptial song” (Line 176). The allusion here is to the book of Revelation, and “unexpressive” means the “inexpressively” joyful song that is sung at the “marriage of the Lamb” of God (Revelation 19:7) in the heavenly kingdom of “joy and love” (Line 177). (The wife of the Lamb is the Church.) In this kingdom, Lycidas hears the saints who sing and move in glory. They wipe the tears from Lycidas’s face—another reference to the Book of Revelation (7:17).

The swain now directly addresses Lycidas. Lycidas is now a guardian spirit (“Genius” [Line 183]) who protects the shore and all who are on the seas (“all that wander in that perilous flood” [Line 185])—presumably referring to the local area he mentioned in the previous lines, near where Edward King drowned. Milton thus treats Lycidas like an ancient Greek figure who dies and becomes associated with a particular place and/or function. Lycidas thus receives both Christian resurrection with its eternal life and joy, as well as being elevated in the mythological world too. He gets the best of both worlds through The Mingling of Pre-Christian and Christian—a fitting consolation for the country swain and everyone else who mourns him.

Lines 186-193

The final stanza features a new speaker who reports that the elegy was sung by “the uncouth swain to th’oaks and rills” (Line 186). In this context, “uncouth” carries its archaic meaning of “unknown” as well as unlettered (as demanded by the conventions of this literary genre). The new speaker describes the swain going out in the morning, playing his pipe—“He touch’d the tender stops of various quills” (Line 188)—and singing his “Doric lay” (Line 189). Doric was an ancient Greek dialect that was used by Theocritus, the writer of pastoral verse (See: Background).

The swain sings until sunset, and the next morning he goes “to fresh woods, and pastures new” (Line 193), which confirms the message of the previous lines that the time for mourning has passed—it is time to move on and experience new things as life continues to unfold.