Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/406

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��LATIN POEMS

��The above headnote, prefixed to the poem for the edition of 1645, leaves only a few addi- tional words of explanation to be given. Mil- ton owed his introduction to Manso, as he tells us in the Def ensio Secunda, to an eremite friar with whom he fell in on the way from Rome to Naples, in November, 1638. Born in 1561, the marquis was now verging upon his eightieth year, and was one of the very few munificent private patrons of art and letters still alive in Italy. He had sheltered Tasso, in 1588, when the poet was wandering friendless and distracted over Italy, and published affection- ate personal memoirs of that poet after his death. He had stood in the same relation of friendship and helpfulness to Marini, upon whose shoulders Tasso's mantle fell. At Ma- rini's death, in 1625, he had taken charge of his burial and erected a monument in his honor. A man so intimately connected with the glories of Italian poetry could not but be interesting to Milton. We have abundant evi- dence that the interest was returned. Milton himself says : " As long as I staid in Naples, I found him truly most friendly to me, he him- self acting as my guide through the different parts of the city and the palace of the viceroy, and coming himself more than once to my inn to visit me ; and at my going away he seri- ously excused himself to me in that, though he wished to have shown me greater attention, he had not been able to do so in that city, because I would not be more close in the matter of religion." The complimentary epigram which Manso gave to his young English guest and which the latter prefixed to his Latin poems,

IL*:c quoque, Manse, tiue meditantur car-

mina laudi Pierides ; tibi, Manse, choro notissime

Phcebi, Quandoquidem ille alium baud sequo est

dignatus honore,

Post Galli cineres, et Mecsenatis Hetrusci. Tu quoque, si nostrie tantum valet aura

Camcense,

Victrices hederas inter laurosque sedebis. Te pridem magno felix concord ia Tasso Junxit, et aeternis inscripsit noinina chartis. Mox tibi dulciloquum non inscia Musa

Marinum Tradidit; ille tuum dici se gaudet alum-

num, 10

Bum canit Assyrios divfim prolixus amores, Mollis et Ausonias stupefecit carmine nym-

��Ille itidem morions tibi soli debita vates Ossa, tibi soli, supremaque vota reliquit:

��rather bluntly excludes his religious convic- tions from eulogy : " If, as thy mind, form, bearing, face, and morals, so also thy creed were, thou would'st be not an Angle but an angel."

In the Epitaphium Damonis there is a de- scription of the wrought or painted cups which Manso gave his guest as a keepsake :

" I dreamed of showing thee the two cups which Manso gave me, Manso, not the least glory of the Neapolitan shore. They are won- ders of art, even as the giver is wonderful. About them is wrought a double brede ; in the midst rolls the red sea, and spring scatters its odors ; along the far coasts of Araby the trees drop balsam. ... In another place is the mighty stretch of sky, where Olympus lies open to view."

The poem to Manso is one of singular ele- gance, and occasionally of high beauty. Auto- biographically the most interesting passage is that in which the poet states his intention of writing an epic upon King Arthur ; by which announcement he makes a tacit claim to be in- cluded in the list of those poets whom Manso has befriended. The concluding passage, in which Milton longs for such a patron and friend as Manso had been to Tasso and Marini, is conceived in a strain of surprising humility and dependence, rising, however, at the end, into confident exultation.

The exact date of the poem cannot be fixed. It was composed either in Italy, after Milton left Naples, or in England, soon after his re- turn.

��These verses too, Manso, the Muses in- tend in praise of you, who are already so well-known to Apollo's choir, and honored by the god above any man since Gallus died and Tuscan Mecsenas. If the breath of my song avails, you too shall sit trium- phant among the laurels and ivy.

First, a happy friendship joined you with great Tasso, and wrote both your names on eternal scrolls. Next, the Muse, knowing your worth, gave to you sweet-tongued Ma- rini ; he rejoiced to be called your guest and debtor while he sang in copious strains the Assyrian loves of the gods, and en- thralled the Italian nymphs with his soft accents. When the poet died, he who had owed you his life gave into your care his bones and death-bed prayers. Your dear

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