Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/365

 ELEGIES AND EPIGRAMS

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��percallet ut admirationes et plausus popu- lorum ab propria sapientia excitatos intel- ligat:

Illi, cujus animi dotes corporisque sen- sus ad admirationem commovent, et per ipsam motuin cuique auferunt; cujus opera ad plausus hortantur, sed venustate vocem laudatoribus adimunt:

Cui in Memoria totus orbis; in Intellectu sapientia; in Voluntate ardor glorise; in Ore eloquentia; harmonicos cselestium sphaerarum sonitus Astronomia duce audi- enti; characteres mirabilium Naturse per

��quos Dei magnitude describitur inagistra Philosophia legenti; antiquitatum latebras, vetustatis excidia, eruditionis ambages, co- mite assidua Autorum lectione, ' exquirenti, restauranti, percurrenti '

(At cur nitor in arduuin ?): Illi in cujus virtutibus evulgandis ora Famse non sufficiant, nee hominum stupor in laudandis satis est, Reverentife et Amo- ris ergo hoc ejus meritis debitum admira- tionis tributum offert

CAROLUS DATUS, Patricius Florentinus, Tanto homini servus, tantae virtutis ainator.

��ELEGIARUM LIBER ELEGIES AND EPIGRAMS

��ELEGIA PRIMA AD CAROLUM DIODATUM

ELEGY I To CHARLES DIODATI

��This verse-letter marks the occasion of Mil- ton's rustication from college during his second academic year, 1625-26, owing to a dispute with his tutor, William ChappeU (see introduc- tory biography). It is addressed to his bosom friend Charles Diodati, to whom also the sixth Latin Elegy and the Italian canzone are ad- dressed, and in whose memory the Epitaphium Damonis was written. Diodati was the son of an Italian father a physician settled in Lon- don and an English mother. Milton's ac- quaintance with him, begun at St. Paul's School, continued after Diodati went up to Oxford, two years before Milton went to Cambridge. When the present epistle was written, Diodati had taken his first degree, and was visiting in the neighborhood of Chester.

The chief interest of the elegy, besides the light it throws on the incident of Milton's rus- tication and his feeling toward his college, lies

TANDEM, chare, tuse mini pervenere ta- bellse,

Pertulit et voces nuncia charta tuas; Pertulit occidua Devse Cestrensis ab ora

Vergivium prono qua petit amne salum. Multum, crede, juvat terras aluisse remotas

Pectus amans nostri, tainque fidele caput, Qu6dque mihi lepidum tellus longinqua sodalem

Debet, at unde brevi reddere jussa velit.

��in the account which he gives of his pastimes during this period of enforced vacation. The enthusiastic account of his theatre-going is especially noteworthy, though ambiguity ex- ists throughout the passage as to whether ac- tual stage representations or merely the read- ing of drama is meant, an ambiguity which is increased by the fact that the illustrations seem drawn equally from Roman comedy and Greek tragedy, and from the contemporary drama of England. He also recounts his walks in the streets and parks of London, with a youthful zest and freshness doubly delightful in a char- acter like his. His praise of the girls whom he encounters, though couched in the conven- tional language of pseudo-classic poetry, is thor- oughly youthful and gay ; even here, however, there is a touch of strenuousness at the end, none the less earnest for being half-playfully uttered.

AT last, dear friend, your letter has reached me ; the missive paper bears me your words from the western shore of the Dee, by Chester, where that river goes down swiftly to the Irish Sea. Much joy it gives me to think that a far-off country has nourished for me so dear a head as yours, and a heart that loves me ; and that soon that distant region where you sojourn will yield back my sweet comrade to my

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