Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/368

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�� ��LATIN POEMS

��Stat quoque juncosas Cami reiueare pa-

ludes,

Atque iterum raucse murmur adire Schobe. go

Interea fidi parvum cape munus amici, Paucaque in alternos verba coacta inodos.

��heavenly plant. It has been arranged for me to go back to the bulrush swamps of Cam, and to the raucous murmur of the school. Meanwhile take this poor gift of a faithful friend, these few words constrained into the measure of elegy.

��ELEGIA SECUNDA

Anno (Etatis 17 IN OBITUM PR^ECONIS ACADEMICI CANTABRIGIENSIS

��ELEGY II ON THE DEATH OF THE UNIVERSITY BEADLE

��The person to whose memory this elegy is addressed, Richard Ridding, M. A., of St. John's College, Cambridge, died in the au- tumn of 1626, near the beginning of Milton's third year at the University. Three persons at Cambridge bear the title of Esquire Bedel (Latin praeco, herald or crier). Their duties are, to bear the mace before the Chancellor on solemn occasions, and to give summons. The office is one of considerable dignity, and has a

TE, qui conspicuus baculo fulgente solebas

Palladium toties ore ciere gregem, Ultima prseconuin pra3conem te quoque sseva

Mors rapit, officio nee favet ipsa suo. Candidiora licet f uerint tibi tempora plumis

Sub quibus accipimus delituisse Jovem, O dignus tamen Ikeinonio juvenescere succo,

Dignus in ^Esonios vivere posse dies, Dignus quern Stygiis medica revocaret ab nndis

Arte Coronides, saepe rogante dea. 10 Tu si jussus eras acies accire togatas,

Et celer a Phcebo nuntius ire tuo, Talis in Iliaca stabat Cyllenius aula

Alipes, aBtherea missus ab arce Patris; Talis et Eurybates ante ora furentis Achil- lei

Rettulit Atridae jussa severa ducis. Magna sepulchrorum regina, satelles Averui,

Sseva nimis Musis, Palladi sseva nirnis,

��life tenure. The opening lines of the elegy have a suspicion of humor in them, but it v safe to say that Milton's tribute was meant in all seriousness. At any rate, the passing away of a picturesque figure from the University life gave the young Latinist too good an op- portunity for versifying to be neglected. The date-heading, anno cetatis 17, is here and else- where misleading ; Milton was, in the autumn of 1626, near the end of his eighteenth year.

As beadle, you were wont, standing con- spicuous with your shining staff, to assem- ble the gowned flock: but now, beadle, Death has summoned you; his fierceness does not favor even his own office. 'Tis true, the locks of your temples were whiter than the swan-plumes under which Jove is storied to have hid, but O, you should have grown young again like JEson, with the simples drawn by Medea from the flowers of Hsemonvale ! ^Esculapius, son of Coronis, heeding the prayers of some importunate goddess, should have called you back with his healing art from the Stygian waves. Whenever you were ordered to go as a swift herald from your Apollo [the vice-chancel- lor of the university] and bring together the togaed hosts, you stood like wing-foot Hermes in the Trojan halls, sent from the ethereal domes of his Father; or like the herald Eurybates, when before the stormy face of Achilles he delivered the stern demands of Agamemnon. O thou great queen of sepulchres, handmaid of Avernus, too harsh to the Muses and the arts, why

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