Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Those Who Forme, but Reforme Not

What is fascinating about Greville's characterization of the Earl of Oxford [Life of Sidney] is how he depicts Oxford's 'worthlessness' - his lack of substance. Oxford's 'shadows, echoes, passions, swellings, windiness' are contrasted with Sidney's substance - his 'worth' and his 'understanding heart.'

Greville - a staunch Calvinist - implies that Oxford is all bluster and show: a creature made by fortune and chance, but 'no-thing' of worth. Like an idol, Oxford 'is coextensive with his exterior'. It is Sidney's 'inner worth' - his 'that within which passes show' that enables him to penetrate Oxford's gloriously deceptive exterior, and makes him impenetrable to the amazement and confusion that false magnificence stirs up in the minds of less fortified souls.

In other words, Sidney remains 'unastonished' by Oxford's false show.


Nicolette Zeeman, _The Idol of the Text_:

--> Idolaters foolishly worship idols despite the fact that they have made them: idols in turn, lure their worshippers in the direction of their own materiality, sometimes even rendering idolators themselves inanimate (Milton - reader turned to marble/astonement)


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Behold, they are all vanity; their works are nothing: their molten
images are wind and confusion.
- Isaiah 41:29

To review Greville's account of Sidney's Famous Act of Iconoclasm:


--> And in this freedome of heart being one day at Tennis, a Peer of this Realm, born great, greater by alliance, and superlative in the Princes favour, abruptly came into the Tennis- Court; and speaking out of these three paramount authorities, he forgot to entreat that, which he could not legally command. When by the encounter of a steady object, finding unrespectiveness in himself (though a great Lord) not respected by this Princely spirit, he grew to expostulate more ROUGHLY. The returns of which stile comming still from an understanding heart, that knew what was due to it self, and what it ought to others, seemed (through the MISTS of my Lords PASSIONS, SWOLN with the WINDE of his FACTION then reigning) to provoke in yeelding. Whereby, the lesse AMAZEMENT, or CONFUSION of thoughts he stirred up in Sir Philip, the more SHADOWES this great Lords own mind was POSSESSED with: till at last with RAGE (which is ever ILL-DISCIPLINED) he commands them to depart the Court. To this
Sir Philip temperately answers; that if his Lordship had been pleased to express desire in milder Characters, perchance he might have led out those, that he should now find would not be driven out with any scourge of fury. This answer (like a bellows) blowing up the sparks of EXCESS already kindled, made my Lord scornfully call Sir Philip by the name of Puppy. In which progress of HEAT, as the TEMPEST grew more and more vehement within, so did their hearts breath out their perturbations in a more loud and shrill accent. The French Commissioners unfortunately had that day audience, in those private Galleries, whose windows looked into the Tennis-Court. They instantly drew all to this tumult: every sort of quarrels sorting well with their humors, especially this. Which Sir Philip perceiving, and rising with inward strength, by the prospect of a mighty faction against him; asked my Lord, with a loud voice, that which he heard clearly enough before. Who ( LIKE AN ECHO, that still multiplies by REFLEXIONS) repeated this Epithet of Puppy the second time. Sir Philip resolving in one answer to conclude both the attentive hearers, and PASSIONATE ACTOR, gave my Lord a Lie, impossible (as he averred) to be retorted; in respect all the world knows, Puppies are gotten by Dogs, and Children by men.


Source: Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary
IDOL
(1.) Heb. aven, "NOTHINGNESS;" "vanity" (Isa. 66:3; 41:29; Deut.
32:21; 1 Kings 16:13; Ps. 31:6; Jer. 8:19, etc.).
(2.) 'Elil, "a thing of naught" (Ps. 97:7; Isa. 19:3); a word
of contempt, used of the gods of Noph (Ezek. 30:13).
(3.) 'Emah, "TERROR," in allusion to the hideous form of idols
(Jer. 50:38).
(4.) Miphletzeth, "a fright;" "horror" (1 Kings 15:13; 2 Chr.
15:16).
(5.) Bosheth, "shame;" "shameful thing" (Jer. 11:13; Hos.
9:10); as characterizing the obscenity of the worship of Baal.
(6.) GILLULIM(!) , also a word of contempt, "dung;" "refuse"
(Ezek. 16:36; 20:8; Deut. 29:17, marg.).
(7.) Shikkuts, "filth;" "impurity" (Ezek. 37:23; Nah. 3:6).
(8.) Semel, "likeness;" "a carved image" (Deut. 4:16).
(9.) Tselem, "a shadow" (Dan. 3:1; 1 Sam. 6:5), as
distinguished from the "likeness," or the exact counterpart.
(10.) Temunah, "similitude" (Deut. 4:12-19). Here Moses
forbids the several forms of Gentile idolatry.
(11.) 'Atsab, "a figure;" from the root "to fashion," "to
labour;" denoting that idols are the result of man's labour
(Isa. 48:5; Ps. 139:24, "wicked way;" literally, as some
translate, "way of an IDOL").
(12.) Tsir, "a form;" "shape" (Isa. 45:16).
(13.) Matztzebah, a "statue" set up (Jer. 43:13); a memorial
stone like that erected by Jacob (Gen. 28:18; 31:45; 35:14, 20),
by Joshua (4:9), and by Samuel (1 Sam. 7:12). It is the name
given to the statues of Baal (2 Kings 3:2; 10:27).
(14.) Hammanim, "sun-images." Hamman is a synonym of Baal, the
sun-god of the Phoenicians (2 Chr. 34:4, 7; 14:3, 5; Isa. 17:8).
(15.) Maskith, "device" (Lev. 26:1; Num. 33:52). In Lev. 26:1,
the words "image of stone" (A.V.) denote "a stone or cippus with
the image of an idol, as Baal, Astarte, etc." In Ezek. 8:12,
"chambers of imagery" (maskith), are "chambers of which the
walls are painted with the figures of idols;" comp. ver. 10, 11.
(16.) Pesel, "a graven" or "carved image" (Isa. 44:10-20). It
denotes also a figure cast in metal (Deut. 7:25; 27:15; Isa.
40:19; 44:10).
(17.) Massekah, "a molten image" (Deut. 9:12; Judg. 17:3, 4).
(18.) Teraphim, pl., "images," family gods (penates)
worshipped by Abram's kindred (Josh. 24:14). Put by Michal in
David's bed (Judg. 17:5; 18:14, 17, 18, 20; 1 Sam. 19:13).
"Nothing can be more instructive and significant than this
multiplicity and variety of words designating the instruments
and inventions of idolatry."
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--> --> Carlos M.N Eire, in _War Against the Idols_ writes:
What makes the Calvinist theories "distinctly Calvinist" is not the arguments themselves, but the reasons for the arguments, and beyond that, the reason for the theories and for the cause itself. This is the struggle against idolatry - and not just idolatry in the church, but as a social phenomenon, as something that needs to be wiped out from the body politic. If there is one concept or word that stands out as some sort of red blinking light in all the Calvinist theories from Calvin to Buchanan, it is precisely this issue of idolatry. If one accepts the religious issue as a real motivating force, as the ideological foundation of dissent, and not just some sort of tool insincerely used in a grand social and political plot, it is possible to say that the word "idolatry" and the concepts it signified became the Calvinist shibboleth in the sixteenth century. It became an inescapable password. (p.308)


In part, this is why I choose to portray Sidney's tennis-court challenge of Oxford as an act of iconoclasm. By virtue (or accident) of his birth Oxford was an influential figure, set up high on a stage in the eyes of his age. Arthur Golding, in a dedication to the Earl, reminded him of his responsibilities to the commonwealth:


-->



..I beseeche your Lordship consider how God hath placed you vpon a high stage in the eyes of all men, as a guide, patterne, insample, and leader vnto others if your vertues be vncounterfayted, if your religion be sound and pure, if your doings be according to true godliness you shalbe a stay to your cuntrie, a comforte too good men, a bridle too euil men, a ioy too your freends, a corzie too your enemies, and an increace of honor to your owne house. But if you should become eyther a counterfayt Protestant, or a peruerse Papist, or a colde and carelesse newter, (which God forbid,) the harme could not be expressed which you should do to your natiue Cuntrie. For (as Cicero, no lesse truely than wisely affirmeth, and as the sorrowfull dooings of our Present dayes do too certeinly auouch) *greate men hurt not the common weale so much by beeing euil in respect of themselues, as by drawing others vnto euil by their euil example*. (Golding, THE EPISTLE DEDICATORYCalvin's Commentaries, Vol. 8: Psalms)


Given his love of Sir Philip Sidney, it is not surprising that Greville portrays his enemy Oxford as an empty worthless blusterer. The idea of Oxford as an ill pattern and bad example had also been suggested by another friend of Sidney's, Gabriel Harvey. In _Speculum Tuscanismi_ Harvey satirizes not only Oxford's person, but his poetry:

'Tell me in good sooth, doth it not too evidently appeare, that this English Poet [Oxford] wanted but a good PATTERNE before his eyes, as it might be some delicate, and choyce elegant Poesie of good M. Sidneys, or M. Dyers (ouer very Castor, & Pollux for such and many greater matters) when this trimme geere was in hatching: Much like some Gentlewooman, I coulde name in England, who by all Phisick and Physiognomie too, might as well have brought forth all goodly faire children, as they have now some YLFAVOURED and DEFORMED, had they at the tyme of their Conception, had in sight, the amiable and gallant beautifull Pictures of ADONIS, Cupido, Ganymedes, or the like, which no doubt would have wrought such deepe impression in their fantasies, and imaginations, as their children, and perhappes their Childrens children to, myght have thanked them for, as long as they shall have Tongues in their heades."



Here Harvey suggests that unlike the poetry of Sidney and Dyer, Oxford's poetry has the power to impress and shape his audience's 'fantasies and imaginations' with the example of his ill-favored and deformed images. Ernest B. Gilman describes 'idolatrous poetry' as a poetry that 'infects the fancy and pleases the eye'. Fulke Greville chastised those who 'form, but reform not.' And my whole argument is that it is this perceived 'power to DEform' that Oxford shares with fanciful and spectacular Shakespeare.

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PROBLEMES OF BEAVTIE and all humane affections.
Written in Italian by Tho: Buoni, cittizen of Lucca.
With a discourse of Beauty, by the same Author.
Translated into English, by S. L. Gent.
AT LONDON Printed by G. Eld, for [H] Edward Blount, and William Aspley. 1606.

VVhy is it the custome to hange Beauti|full pictures in the chambers of those women that are with childe? Probleme. 35.

PErhaps because those strang occur|rents that in former times haue fallen out, are an instruction to men in these dayes to preuent the like euents: For great women by contemplating, and gazing on serpents, and Moores in their chambers in the act of generation, haue brought forth monstrous birthes, Single illegible lettern some figure, and proportion like vnto them: By which strange euents men seeing terrified, to the ende they may preuent the like dangerous issues, they hange their Chambers with Beautifull images, and pictures. Or Perhaps because the desire of parents to haue Beautifull children is so great (for Beau|ty being powerfull to incline the hearts of men) promiseth (as it were) a future felicitie, that knowing the great force of imagination and con|ceipt in the act of generation they are
carefull to furnish their Chambers with fayre, and Beautifull pictures: to the end that their children may come into the light in some sorte answerable to their desires. Or Perhaps because men not being content with the nobilitie of their owne bloud, and Beauty, they desire likewise the outward helpes of those princely Beauties of the most fa|mous women in all Countries, to the ende their children may likewise proue admirable in that qualitie, and they winne vnto themselues greater honor. Or Perhaps because as they vse with a thousand restoritiues to comfort the fearefull hearts of their afflicted wiues being neare their la|bour, so they are no way backeward by these present figures adorned with diuers coulours, and strang Beauties to make them comfortable.
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A Disproportionate Figure:


(Unfortunately, Satan also shared the power to deform and misrepresent)

-->
The opposition of Christ and Satan in Paradise Lost is in the same was, as John Steadman has argued, the difference between image and idol, the “eikon and the eidolon of HEROIC VIRTUE.” The Son is the image of the Father’s glory; Satan, in his “Sun-bright chariot,” is the false appearance or phantasm of that image, the 'Idol of Majesty Divine”. His fallen legions, left free to wander the earth after the Fall, will inaugurate the history of idolatry in the shape of “various Idols through the Heathen World”, and their polluted rites will become the type of Catholic mis-devotion and of the political idolatry of the Stuart court. This distinction between idol and icon, which Steadman traces back through Bacon’s critique of the “idols” to Plato’s Theatetus and The Sophist, also set the terms of the debate in Italian criticism between Mazzoni and Tasso – the one maintaining that poetry is “phantastic,” a sophistical art of fallacious appearances only, the other that poetry is “eikastic,” an art of likeness and probability related to dialectic and more directly reflecting the truth it images. The topic is epitomized in Sidney’s Apologie, where it is illustrated by analogy with the sister art of painting:
“For I will not denie, but that mans wit may make Poesie (which should be Eikastike, which some learned have defined, figuring foorth good things) to be Phantastike: which doth, contrariwise, infect the fancie with unworthy objects. As the Painter, that shoulde give to the eye eyther some excellent perspective, or some fine picture, fit for building or fortification, or containing in it some notable example as Abraham sacrificing his Sonne Isaack, Judith killing Holofernes, David fighting with Goliath, may leave those, and please an ill-pleased eye with wanton shewes of better hidden matters.
An idolatrous poetry infects the fancy and pleases the eye. An eikastic poetry illuminates the desire for “good things.” It too can appeal to the eye, but as Sidney’ notable examples suggest – all of them Old Testament histories, often represented in Protestant art, against which no charge of idolatry could be levered – its highest aim is to move the soul to virtuous action, to the sacrificing, killing, and fighting performed by the faithful in response to God’s word. (Ernest B. Gilman, (pp.162-163)

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-->
--> Greville, _Life of Sidney_
Neither am I (for my part) so much in love with this life, nor believe so little in a better to come, as to complain of God for taking him [Sidney], and such like exorbitant worthyness from us: fit (as it were by an Ostracisme) to be divided, and not incorporated with our corruptions: yet for the sincere affection I bear to my Prince, and Country, my prayer to God is, that this Worth, and Way may not fatally be buried with him; in respect, that both before his time, and since, experience hath published the usuall discipline of greatnes to have been tender of it self onely; making HONOUR a triumph, or rather TROPHY OF DESIRE, set up in the eyes of Mankind, either to be worshiped as IDOLS, or else as Rebels to perish under her glorious oppressions. *Notwithstanding, when the pride of flesh, and power of favour shall cease in these by death, or disgrace; what then hath time to register, or fame to publish in these great mens names, that will not be offensive, or infectious to others? What Pen without blotting can write the story of their deeds? Or what Herald blaze their Arms without a blemish? And as for their counsels and projects, when they come once to light, shall they not live as noysome, and loathsomely above ground, as their Authors carkasses lie in the grave? So as the return of such greatnes to the world, and themselves, can be but private reproach, publique ill example, and a fatall scorn to the Government they live in. Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the greatness which he affected was built upon true Worth; esteeming Fame more than Riches, and Noble actions far above Nobility it self.
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From Michael O'Connell, _The Idolatrous Eye - Iconoclasm and Theatre in Early-Modern England_,pp.116-117.
Any reader of Elizabethan texts is well aware how this anxiety about the visual is enacted in suspicion of linguistic ornament: phrases like "painted shows" or "painted eloquence," "colours of rhetoric," "fine polished words" and "filed phrases" convey an at best ambivalent, and frequently pejorative sense of the appeal to the eye. The underlying tropological sense of these phrases reflects an unease about visual art itself, suggesting an identity with the forgery of cosmetics. Distrust of the visual, while by no means universal, is a persistent strain in Humanist poetics. Ernest Gilman has described the ways in which the paragone between the "sister arts" was crossed by the Reformation rejection of images:
(Gilman) It is important to realize that "iconoclasm" is something that can happen to texts and within texts written during this period, and that the most compelling texts often betray a consciousness of the image-debate that reflects the process of their own composition. The scene of such writing is set at the crossroads where a lively tradition of image making confronts a militantly logocentric theology armed not only with an overt hostility to "images" in worship but with a deep suspicion of the idolatrous potential of the fallen mind and its fallen language.
(snip)
In comparison with the word, the image may have come to seem coercive in the response it provokes; its affective power appears to leave no gap for critical reflection, especially in the mass audience at which the electronic image is aimed. By contrast the word is frequently claimed as evocative rather than coercive, as calling forth reflection and allowing the participation of the listener's (or reader's) own subjectivities.

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"Weigh the meaning and look not at the words." -- Jonson
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looke/ Not on his Picture, but his Booke. -- Jonson
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Nicolette Zeeman, _The Idol of the Text_

--> Despite the literalists best efforts, they could not escape the capacity for language to create verbal 'images', or speaking pictures. In the 'Idol of the Text', Nicolette Zeeman concentrates on 'a particular figure seen in the imaginative text' , believing that, 'the idol is the underside of the notion that the imaginative text is like an image.'
"For a number of later medieval writers, including Chaucer, the figure of the idol is a means of focusing on problematic aspects of imaginative textuality and its contents. The idol articulates some of the difficulties of dealing with textual inheritance, the archive, and the 'authority'. '
(snip)
What is the idol in the Middle Ages? Contrasting idols with Christian signs in the semiotics of Augustine, John Freccero describes idols as 'reified signs devoid of significance', gods 'coextensive with their representations.'. The idol refuses to be read as part of a larger sign system, drawing attention only to itself and to its own malleable materiality. In this sense, although it is highly material, it is 'NOTHING' (I Corinthians 8:4). It exists in the mutable world only for itself and to be worshipped for itself. Idolaters foolishly worship idols despite the fact that they have made them: idols in turn, lure their worshippers in the direction of their own materiality, sometimes even rendering idolators themselves inanimate (Milton - reader turned to marble/astonement) -NLD)
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Greville, An Inquisition vpon Fame and Honour.
Then make the summe of our Idea's this,
Who loue the world, giue latitude to Fame,
And this Man-pleasing, Gods displeasing is,
Who loue their God, haue glory by his name:
But fixe on Truth, who can, that know it not?
*Who fixe on error, doe but write to blot*.
86.
"Who worship Fame, commit Idolatry,
"Make Men their God, Fortune and Time their worth,
"Forme, but reforme not, meer hypocrisie,
"By shadowes, onely shadowes bringing forth,
"Which must, as blossomes, fade ere true fruit springs,
"(Like voice, and eccho) ioyn'd; yet diuers things.

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--> Michael O'Connell, _The Idolatrous Eye - Iconoclasm & Theater in Early-Modern England pp.119-121_ For both Jonson and Shakespeare the issue of theatrical identity is crucial, and both enjoin the issue of eye and ear in the self-reflexive moments when their plays project an awareness of their own artificiality. Jonson is ever the more agonistic in his assertion of the nature and ends of theater - and at the same time paradoxically the more inclined to quarrel with the demands themselves of creating theatrical spectacle. Jonas Barish has described Jonson's always ambivalent, frequently hostile relationship to the stage for which he wrote, characterizing it, without exaggeration, as a "deeply rooted antitheatricalism." Something of Jonson's hostility came of his contentious temperament and the quarrels that were somehow necessary to the kind of artist he was and the kind of theater he wished to create. But that hostility was founded intellectually on his primary allegiance to humanist culture. Richard Helgerson has shown how large a part this
allegiance played in Jonson's creation for himself of a laureate identity against his identity as a man of the theater. Even when promoting or defending his stage works, as he does almost constantly in his prologues dedications, inductions, and epilogues, Jonson seldom appears able to allow a play simply to be a play. Most frequently he insists on them as poems, as for example in his dedication of Volpone to the two universities, or when he dedicates the failed Catiline to the Earl of Pembroke, assuring him that posterity will honor him for countenancing "a legitimate Poem" in these "jig-given times". Mockery of the physical requirements of staging, predominantly the movement and visual effects required by the audience for whom a play was not a poem but a show, also pepper the prefatory explaining he found essential to his identity, not as a playwright, but as a "dramatic poet" Jonson's insistent hope that readers would find in his plays what mere spectators had missed reached its logical end when, in mid-career, he printed them in his Works of 1616, a gesture of self-presentation as characteristic of Jonson as it was innovative for the stage. After the theatrical failure of The New Inn, he bitterly dedicated the printing of the text of the play "To the reader." If his reader-patron can but construe the sense of the words, Jonson insists, he is better off that the "hundred fastidious impertinents" who saw the play but never made it out. Erasmus' insistence of the higher truth of the verbal, printed edition of Christ finds a significant counterpart in Jonson's valuation of the printed texts of his plays against their theatrical incarnations. (snip)
Jonson's quarrel with Inigo Jones can be understood at one level as centering on the losing battle that the word waged with the multiplicity of arts appealing to the eye in the court masque. Intensified by this quarrel, Jonson's cross-grained dislike of the theatrical seems to have increased rather than decreased in the latter part of his writing for the stage. If the Puritans would have worshippers avoid the idolatry of the visual to attend wholly to the word of Scripture, Jonson wished them to evade the seduction of spectacle to attend to his words. The prologue to The Staple of News not only distinguishes between the poet nad those who perform his words on stage, but seems indeed to yearn for a blind audience:
For your own sakes, not his, he bade me say
Would you were come to hear, not see a play.
Though we his actors must provide for those
Who are our guests here in the way of shows,
The maker hath not so. He'd have you wise
Much rather by your ears than by your EYES.
This comes but as an extreme version of what Jonson in one way or another seems always to have wanted: near exclusive attention to the verbal element of the mixed art that theater is . In the play this is tied to the falsity that the display of costume represents..
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Sweet Swan of Avon ! what a SIGHT it were
To SEE thee in our waters yet appear,
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From a Poetics of Idolatry, Kenneth Gross_Spenserian Poetics_,


· The description of the idol as "no-thing" depends on the Hebrew use of the word 'elil, "nonentity," "worthlessness," to refer to idolatrous images. The word appears among other places in Leviticus 19.4, Psalms 96.5, Isaiah 2.8, 18, 20 and Ezekiel 30.13. Its perjorative sense is often reinforced in these texts by its ironic proximity to the words 'el or 'elohim, generic titles for the Hebrew god. On the variety of Hebrew epithets for "idol" or "GRAVEN image," see George Buttrick et al., Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, 2:673-74.

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Greville, A Letter to an Honourable Lady

For the evill is malitious, and yet subiect, changing, because imperfection cannot stand alone; amorous, for that euery thing seemes louely, compared with the deformitie of euill it selfe. But it may please you to remember, that Inconstancy hath so strong a wall of craft about it, as it is hard by sophistication of WIT; to master the experience of euill: it being old borne with vs, and acquainted with euery corner, accesse and recesse of our mindes. Besides, it comes not into the nature of man with cleare, and open euidence, as true theirs doe; but as Vsurpers, whose vnderminings are hardly to bee seene, while they may be preuented; and when they are seene, beyond care, or contention.

For the being of e uill being nothing, but onely a depriuing of the good, and the captiuing of our free-will-lights to the workes of darknesse; it must needs come to passe, that when her conquering venimes are once distilled through all our powers, and wee won with our selues, that there can bee no thought within vs to heare, or entreat; and without vs, *though Authority may cut off the infection of ill Example from others*, yet can it no more take away the Diuels part in vs, than call vp the dead. Out of which I conclude: whatsoeuer cannot be mended (without Authority) cannot be RULED. 


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Author: Adams, Thomas, fl. 1612-1653. 
Title: The temple Date: 1624 

...To conclude, if it were as easie to convince Idolaters, as it is to confound and tread downe their Idols, this labour of Confutation had bin well spared, or were soone ended. But if nothing can reclaime them from this superstitious practice, let them reade their fearefull sentence. Their place shall be without, among the dogs, and those desperate sinners uncapable of forgiveness. The strong, the Idol which they made their strength, shall bee as TOWE, and the maker or wroshipper thereof as a sparke, and they shall both burne together in everlasting fire, and none shal quench them. Now the Lord open their eyes to see and sanctifie their hearts to yeeld, that there is no agreement betwixt the Temple of God and Idols: which is the next point, whereof I shall speake with what brevitie I can, and with what fidelitie I ought.
(snip)
Thus we have looked abroad, but now have we no Idols at home? O how happy was it, if they were as farre from the Temple, as they are from agreement with the Temple? I will not abound in this discovery: there be three maine Idols among us: Vaine Pleasure, vaine Honor, and Riches: and it is more to be feared, that these three vanities have more clients then the Trinit that made us. The first is an Idol of the water, the next an Idol of the ayre, the last an Idol of the earth.
1. Vaine Pleasure; and oh what a world of foolish worshippers flocke to this merry Goddesse! She hath a Temple in every corner: Ebrietie fits in Tavernes, burning smoky Incense, and sacrificing drink-offrings to her. So that if a man should prophesie of wine and strong drinke, he were a Prophet fit for THIS AGE: but to preach sobrietie, is held but a dry doctrine. ~We commend wine for the excellency of it: but if it could speak as it can take away speech, it would complaine, that by our abuse, both the excellencies are lost: for the excellent man doth spoile the excellent wine, untill the excellent wine hath spoined the excellent man. O that a man should take pleasure in that which makes him no man: that he should let a thiefe in at his mouth, to steale away his wit: that for a little throat-indulgence, he should kill in himself both the first ~Adam, his reason; but even the second "Adam his regeneration, and so commit two murders at once! In every Brothell this Idol hath her temple: where the bed of uncleanness is the Altar, the Priest a strumpet, and the sacrifice, a burning flesh offered to Moloch. It is no rare thing for a man to make an Idol of his Mistres, and to spend more time in her courtings, then he doth at his prayers; more cost on her body, then upon his own soule. Images were but dead Idols, but painted Popinjayes be living Idols Pleasure hath a larger extent, then I can now stand to survey: this may be callled an Idol of the Water, fluid and unsatisfying.
2. Vaine Honour is the Idol of fooles: no wise man ever sought felicity in shadows. His Temple is Pride, his Altar Ambition, his Service Flattery, his Sacrifice Petulancy. ~Silly Sennacherib, to make an Idol of a Chariot: and no wiser Prince of Tyre, to make an Idol of his own brain! Men mistake the way to bee great, while they neglect the way to be good. All the while a man hunts after his shadow, he miss-spends his time and paines: for the Sun is upon his back, behind him, and his shadow is still un-overtaken before him: but let him turne his face to the Sun, and follow that, his shadow shall follow him. IN vaine doth that man pursue honor, his shadow, while he turnes his face from vertue and goodnes; he shall misse what hee so labors to catch: but let him set his face toward Christ, the Sun of righteousnes, and run to the high prize of eternitie, this shadow shall wayt upon him; for those that honour me, I will honour, saith the Lord.

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TO THE MOST NOBLE AND INCOMPARABLE PAIRE OF BRETHREN
WILLIAM Earle of Pembroke, &c;. Lord Chamberlaine to the Kings most Excellent Majesty.
AND
PHILIP Earle of Montgomery,&c;. Gentleman of his Majesties


...For, so much were your L.L. likings of the severall parts, when they were acted, as before they were published, the Volume ask'd to be yours. We have but collected them, and done an office to the dead, to procure his Orphanes, Guardians; without ambition either of selfe-profit, or fame: onely to keepe the memory of so worthy a Friend, & Fellow alive, as was our S H A K E S P E A R E , by humble offer of his playes, to your most noble patronage. Wherein, as we have justly observed, no man to come neere your L.L. but with a kind of religious addresse; it hath bin the height of our care, who are the Presenters, to make the present worthy of your H.H. by the perfection.
But, there we must also crave our abilities to be considerd, my Lords. We cannot go beyond our owne powers. Country hands reach foorth milke, creame, fruites, or what they have : and many Nations (we have heard) that had not gummes & incense, obtained their requests with a leavened Cake. It was no fault to approach their Gods, by what meanes they could: And the most, though meanest, of things are made more precious, when they are dedicated to Temples. In that name therefore, we most humbly consecrate to your H.H. these remaines of your servant Shakespeare; that what delight is in them, may be ever your L.L. the reputation his, & the faults ours, if any be committed, by a payre so carefull to shew their gratitude both to the living, and the dead, as is.
Your Lordshippes most bounden,
JOHN HEMINGE.
HENRY CONDELL.

***********************************

George Herbert - Author of The Temple:


Religion Westward Bent 

Religion stands on tip-toe in our land,
Readie to passe to the American strand.
When height of malice, and prodigious lusts,
Impudent sinning, witchcrafts, and distrusts
(The marks of future bane) shall fill our cup
Unto the brimme, and make our measure up;
When Sein shall swallow Tiber, and the Thames
By letting in them both pollutes her streams:
When Italie of us shall have her will,
And all her calender of sinnes fulfill;
Whereby one may foretell, what sinnes next yeare
Shall both in France and England domineer:
Then shall Religion to America flee:
They have their times of Gospel, ev'n as we...

Sunday, December 20, 2009

By Shadowes, onely Shadowes Bringing Forth




Vain imaginings unauthorized by God. Oxford's 'crime'? Eikastike vs. phantastike representations - the argument initiated against Oxford by Sir Philip Sidney:

"For I will not denie, but that mans wit may make Poesie, which should be EIKASTIKE, which some learned have defined figuring foorth good things to be PHANTASTIKE, which doth contrariwise INFECT the FANCIE with unWOORTHie objects..." (Sidney, _Defence of Poesy_)

Pride. Superbia - Satan's sin. Self-love. Putting his own hollow, godless images before the people and snaring them with his enchantments. Selling dross - shadows, dreams and smoke - unwoorthie objects. Creating a world of metaphor and shadow rather than seeking out substance (true meaning/worth).


Caelica, if I obey not, but dispute,
Thinke it is darkenesse; which seeks out a light,
And to presumption do not it impute,
If I forsake this way of Infinite;
Books be of men, men but in clouds doe see,
Of whose embracements Centaures gotten be. (Greville)


Sweet Swan of Avon! (grappling with an evasive cygnified)



"No cloud of Fancie, no mysterious stroke,
No Verse like those which antient Sybils spoke;
No Oracle of Language, to *AMAZE*
The Reader with a dark, or Midnight Phrase," (Jasper Mayne)


In my imagination I turn to a shadowy figure and point:

YOU! Fulke Greville! Come forth!

(You, who never affected Fame, but instead chose where and how to bestow it.)


"Then make the summe of our Idea's this,
Who loue the world, giue latitude to Fame,
And this Man-pleasing, Gods displeasing is,
Who loue their God, haue glory by his name:
But fixe on Truth, who can, that know it not?
*Who fixe on ERROR, doe but write to blot*.

"Who worship Fame, commit Idolatry,
"Make Men their God, Fortune and Time their worth,
"Forme, but reforme not, meer hypocrisie,
"By shadowes, onely shadowes bringing forth,
"Which must, as blossomes, fade ere true fruit springs,
"(Like voice, and eccho) ioyn'd; yet diuers things." (Greville)



Form but reform not? Bringing forth shadows and deformity? Meer hypocrisie -

Hypocrisy \Hy*poc"ri*sy\ (h[i^]*p[o^]k"r[i^]*s[y^]), n.; pl.
  Hypocrisies (-s[i^]z). [OE. hypocrisie, ypocrisie, OF.
  hypocrisie, ypocrisie, F. hypocrisie, L. hypocrisis, fr. Gr.
  "ypo`krisis the playing a part on the stage, simulation,
  outward show, fr. "ypokr`nesqai to answer on the stage, to
  play a part; "ypo` under + kri`nein to decide; in the middle
  voice, to dispute, contend. See Hypo-, and Critic.]
  The act or practice of a hypocrite; a feigning to be what one
  is not, or to feel what one does not feel; a dissimulation,
  or a concealment of one's real character, disposition, or
  motives; especially, the assuming of false appearance of
  virtue or religion; a simulation of goodness.


Your godly Sidney enjoys True Fame - but what of his Adversary? In your 'Life of Sidney' you set Oxford upon a stage - lifting his mask of nobility you reveal him to be a tyrant. A tyrant encountering his David.

Greville - Life of Sidney

Neither am I (for my part) so much in love with this life, nor believe so little in a better to come, as to complain of God for taking him [Sidney], and such like exorbitant WORTHYness from us: fit (as it were by an Ostracisme) to be divided, and not incorporated with our corruptions: yet for the sincere affection I bear to my Prince, and Country, my prayer to God is, that this WORTH, and Way may not fatally be buried with him; in respect, that both before his time, and since,experience hath published the usuall discipline of greatnes to have been tender of it self onely; making honour a triumph, or rather TROPHY of desire, set up in the eyes of Mankind, either to be worshiped as IDOLS, or else as Rebels to perish under her glorious oppressions. Notwithstanding, when the PRIDE of FLESH, and power of favour shall cease in these by death, or disgrace; *what then hath time to register, or FAME to publish in these great mens names, that will not be offensive, or infectious to others? What Pen without BLOTTING can write the story of their deeds? Or what Herald blaze their Arms without a blemish? And as for their counsels and projects, when they come once to light, shall they not live as noysome, and loathsomely above ground, as their Authors carkasses lie in the grave? So as the return of such greatnes to the world, and themselves, can be but private reproach, publique ill example, and a fatall scorn to the Government they live in. Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the greatness which he affected was built upon true WORTH; esteeming Fame more than Riches, and Noble actions far above Nobility it self.

(By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown)


Achates! Tell the story of the aBASEment of that Idol - that unwoorthie object, the Earl of Oxford. Fulke Greville! Servant of Queen Elizabeth, Councillor to King James, Friend to Sir Philip Sidney.

Recorder of Stratford. Master of Shakespeare.



1 John 2:16
For all that is in the WORLD, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the PRIDE of life, is not of the Father, but is of the WORLD.


"And in this freedome of heart [Sidney] being one day at Tennis, a Peer of this Realm, born great, greater by alliance, and superlative in the Princes favour, abruptly came into the Tennis-Court; and speaking out of these three paramount authorities, he forgot to entreat that, which he could not legally command. When by the encounter of a steady object, finding unrespectiveness in himself (though a great Lord) not respected by this PRINCELY SPIRIT, he grew to expostulate more ROUGHLY. The returns of which stile comming still from an understanding heart, that knew what was due to it self, and what it ought to others, seemed (through the MISTS of my Lords PASSIONS, SWOLN with the WINDE of his FACTION then reigning) to provoke in yeelding. Whereby, the LESSE AMAZEMENT, or CONFUSION of thoughts he STIRRED up in Sir Philip, the more SHADOWES this great Lords own MIND was POSSESSED with: till at last with RAGE (which is ever ILL-DISCIPLINED) he commands them to depart the Court...

Hereupon those GLORIOUS INEQUALITIES of FORTUNE in his Lordship were put to a kinde of pause, by a PRECIOUS INEQUALITY of NATURE in this Gentleman." (Greville, Life of Sidney)


"...if the MATTER be in NATURE VILE, /How can it be made PRECIOUS
by a stile" – Greville

****************************


Exploring the vocabulary of Oxford’s enemies:


Vile \Vile\, a. [Comp. Viler; superl. Vilest.] [OE. vil, F.
vil, from L. vilis cheap, WORTHLESS, vile, BASE.]
1. Low; base; worthless; mean; despicable.

A poor man in vile raiment. --James ii. 2.

The craft either of fishing, which was Peter's, or
of making tents, which was Paul's, were [was] more
vile than the science of physic. --Ridley.

The inhabitants account gold but as a vile thing.
--Abp. Abbot.

2. Morally base or impure; depraved by sin; hateful; in the
sight of God and men; sinful; wicked; bad. ``Such vile
base practices.'' --Shak.

Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer thee ? --Job
xl. 4.


Ignoble \Ig*no"ble\, a. [L. ignobilis; pref. in- not + nobilis
noble: cf. F. ignoble. See In- not, and Noble, a.]
1. Of low birth or family; not noble; not illustrious;
plebeian; common; humble.

I was not ignoble of descent. --Shak.

Her royal stock graft with ignoble plants. --Shak.

2. Not honorable, elevated, or generous; base.

'T but a base, ignoble mind, That mounts no higher
than a bird can soar. --Shak.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife. --Gray.

3. (Zo["o]l.) Not a true or noble falcon; -- said of certain
hawks, as the goshawk.

Syn: Degenerate; degraded; mean; base; dishonorable;
reproachful; disgraceful; shameful; scandalous;
infamous.


Infamous \In"fa*mous\, a. [Pref. in- not + famous: cf. L.
infamis. See Infamy.]
1. Of very bad report; having a reputation of the worst kind;
held in abhorrence; guilty of something that exposes to
infamy; base; notoriously vile; detestable; as, an
infamous traitor; an infamous perjurer.

False errant knight, infamous, and forsworn.
--Spenser.

2. Causing or producing infamy; deserving detestation;
scandalous to the last degree; as, an infamous act;
infamous vices; infamous corruption. --Macaulay.

3. (Law) Branded with infamy by conviction of a crime; as, at
common law, an infamous person can not be a witness.

4. Having a bad name as being the place where an odious crime
was committed, or as being associated with something
detestable; hence, unlucky; perilous; dangerous.
``Infamous woods.'' --P. Fletcher.

Infamous hills, and sandy perilous wilds. --Milton.

The piny shade More infamous by cursed Lycaon made.
--Dryden.

Syn: Detestable; odious; scandalous; disgraceful; base; vile;
shameful; ignominious.



CXI

1. O! for my sake do you with Fortune chide,
2. The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds,
3. That did not better for my life provide
4. Than public means which public manners breeds.
5. Thence comes it that my name receives a brand,
6. And almost thence my nature is subdued
7. To what it works in, like the dyer's hand:
8. Pity me, then, and wish I were renewed;
9. Whilst, like a willing patient, I will drink
10. Potions of eisel 'gainst my strong infection;
11. No bitterness that I will bitter think,
12. Nor double penance, to correct correction.
13. Pity me then, dear friend, and I assure ye,
14. Even that your pity is enough to cure me.


CXII

1. Your love and pity doth the impression fill,
2. Which vulgar scandal stamped upon my brow;
3. For what care I who calls me well or ill,
4. So you o'er-green my bad, my good allow?
5. You are my all-the-world, and I must strive
6. To know my shames and praises from your tongue;
7. None else to me, nor I to none alive,
8. That my steeled sense or changes right or wrong.
9. In so profound abysm I throw all care
10. Of others' voices, that my adder's sense
11. To critic and to flatterer stopped are.
12. Mark how with my neglect I do dispense:
13. You are so strongly in my purpose bred,
14. That all the world besides methinks y'are dead.

CXXI

1. 'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,
2. When not to be receives reproach of being;
3. And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
4. Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
5. For why should others' false adulterate eyes
6. Give salutation to my sportive blood?
7. Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
8. Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
9. No, I am that I am, and they that level
10. At my abuses reckon up their own:
11. I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
12. By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
13. Unless this general evil they maintain,
14. All men are bad and in their badness reign.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Oxford's Image and Eikonoklastes

Before he attacked the image of the king, Milton participated in the defacement of the Earl of Oxford.


***************************


I sing the starry axis and the singing hosts in the sky, *and of the
gods suddenly destroyed in their own SHRINES*. -- Milton, 1629

**************************
Shrine \Shrine\, v. t.
To enshrine; to place reverently, as in a shrine. ``Shrined
in his sanctuary.'' --Milton.

Shrine \Shrine\ (shr[imac]n), n. [OE. schrin, AS. scr[=i]n, from
L. scrinium a case, chest, box.]
1. A case, box, or receptacle, especially one in which are
deposited sacred relics, as the bones of a saint.

2. Any sacred place, as an altar, tomb, or the like.

Too weak the sacred shrine guard. --Byron.

3. A place or object hallowed from its history or
associations; as, a shrine of art.

****************************************

Milton
On Shakespeare. 1630

WHat needs my Shakespear for his HONOUR'D BONES,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his HALLOW'D RELIQUES should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing PYRAMID?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame, [ 5 ]
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart [ 10 ]
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book,
Those DELPHICK lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us MARBLE with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher'd in such POMP dost lie, [ 15 ]
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.

**************************************

George Herbert


THE SINNER.

LORD, how I am all ague, when I seek
What I have treasur’d in my memorie !
            Since, if my soul make even with the week,
Each seventh note by right is due to thee.
I finde there quarries of pil’d vanities,
            But shreds of holinesse, that dare not venture
            To shew their face, since crosse to thy decrees :
There the circumference earth is, heav’n the centre.
In so much dregs the quintessence is small :
            The spirit and good extract of my heart
            Comes to about the many hundredth part.
Yet, Lord, restore thine image, heare my call :
            And though my hard heart scarce to thee can grone,
            Remember that thou once didst write in stone. 

**************************************

'Godly' Courtier Herbert - Movement from Material to Spiritual/Inwardness
'Worldly' Courtier Oxford/Shakespeare - Worldly/Material/Appearance/Idolatry

**************************************
APOLLO from his SHRINE/ Can no more divine,/
With hollow shreik the steep of DELPHOS leaving. - Milton

********************************

King's Book/King's Shrine

Shakespeare's Book/Oxford's Shrine

********************************

Milton, Eikonoklastes

...And here may be well observed the loose and negligent
curiosity of those, who took upon them to adorn the setting out of
this book; for though the picture set in front would martyr him and
saint him to befool the people, yet the Latin motto in the end, which
they understand not, leaves him, as it were, a politic contriver to
bring about that interest, by fair and plausible words, which the
force of arms denied him. But quaint emblems and devices, begged from
the old pageantry of some twelfthnight's entertainment at Whitehall,
will do but ill to make a saint or martyr: and if the people resolve
to take him sainted at the canonizing, I shall suspect their calendar
more than the Gregorian. In one thing I must commend the openness, who
gave the title to the is book, Eikon Basilike, that is to say, the
King's Image; and by the SHRINE he dresses out for him, certainly
would have the people come and worship him. For which reason this
answer is entitled, Eikonoklastes, the famous surname of many Greek
emperors, who, in their zeal to the command of God, after long
tradition of idolatry in the church, took courage and broke all
superstitious images to pieces.

********************************

Performing early modern trauma from Shakespeare to Milton
By Thomas Page Anderson

In the "Preface" to Eikonoklastes, Milton establishes his strategy to
disarm the book in a disingenuous offer of praise. He "commends" the
King's "op'ness" in giving the title of The King's Image to the book.
And he complements as well the appearance of the project: "by the
SHRINE he dresses out for him, certainly would have the people come
and worship him" (EK, p.68). Milton's reference to the shrine echoes
Protestant writings that worked to debunk notions of the sacred altar
central to the Catholic sacraments. By acknowledging the altar-like
status of the text, Milton associates the book's appeal to its
putative efficacy. However, he qualifies the king's SHRINE by
suggesting that its altar-like status is the product of effective
staging or "dress[ing] out."

******************************
DisMantle/DiVest

Lye there my Art.

*****************************

For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart [ 10 ]
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book,
Those DELPHICK lines with DEEP IMPRESSION took, --Milton

Engrave \En*grave"\, v. t. [Pref. en- + grave a tomb. Cf.
Engrave to carve.]
To deposit in the grave; to bury. [Obs.] ``Their corses to
engrave.'' --Spenser.

Engrave \En*grave"\, v. t. [imp. Engraved; p. p. Engraved or
Engraven; p. pr. & vb. n. Engraving.] [Pref. en- + grave
to carve: cf. OF. engraver.]
1. To cut in; to make by incision. [Obs.]

Full many wounds in his corrupted flesh He did
engrave. --Spenser.

2. To cut with a graving instrument in order to form an
inscription or pictorial representation; to carve figures;
to mark with incisions.

Like . . . . a signet thou engrave the two stones
with the names of the children of Israel. --Ex.
xxviii. 11.

3. To form or represent by means of incisions upon wood,
stone, metal, or the like; as, to engrave an inscription.

4. To impress deeply; to infix, as if with a graver.

Engrave principles in men's minds. --Locke.

*******************************

Grave \Grave\, v. t. [imp. Graved (gr[=a]vd); p. p. Graven
(gr[=a]v"'n) or Graved; p. pr. & vb. n. Graving.] [AS.
grafan to dig, grave, engrave; akin to OFries. greva, D.
graven, G. graben, OHG. & Goth. graban, Dan. grabe, Sw.
gr[aum]fva, Icel. grafa, but prob. not to Gr. gra`fein to
write, E. graphic. Cf. Grave, n., Grove, n.]
1. To dig. [Obs.] Chaucer.

He hath graven and digged up a pit. --Ps. vii. 16
(Book of
Common
Prayer).

2. To carve or cut, as letters or figures, on some hard
substance; to engrave.

Thou shalt take two onyx stones, and grave on them
the names of the children of Israel. --Ex. xxviii.
9.

3. To carve out or give shape to, by cutting with a chisel;
to sculpture; as, to grave an image.

With gold men may the hearte grave. --Chaucer.

4. To impress deeply (on the mind); to fix indelibly.

O! may they graven in thy heart remain. --Prior.

5. To entomb; to bury. [Obs.] --Chaucer.

Lie full low, graved in the hollow ground. --Shak.

Graven \Grav"en\, p. p. of Grave, v. t.
Carved.

Graven image, an idol; an object of worship carved from
wood, stone, etc. ``Thou shalt not make unto thee any
graven image.'' --Ex. xx. 4.

***************************
Look not on his Image, but his Book/
This side idolatry:

Graven Figure/Brazen Idol:

To the Reader.
This FIGURE, that thou here seest put,
It was for gentle Shakespeare CUT,
Wherein the GRAVER had a strife
with Nature, to out-doo the life :
O, could he but have drawne his wit
As well in brasse, as he hath hit
His face ; the Print would then surpasse
All, that was ever writ in BRASSE.
But, since he cannot, Reader, looke
Not on his PICTURE, but his BOOKE.

**************************

Him thus intent Ithuriel with his spear Touch'd lightly; for no *falsehood* can endure Touch of celestial temper.--Milton, P.L.

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Pride, Pomp and Sorcery

Before Milton smashed the King's Image in his 'Eikonoklastes' - he played an important part in the defacement of the Earl of Oxford. In his 1630 poem 'on Shakespeare', Milton attacks Shakespeare's 'idolatrous' representational practices under cover of praise.

(Later Milton would accuse 'William Shakespeare' of being the King's closet companion during the period of his incarceration - in essence, the King's advisor as he composed his 'idolatrous' book - the Eikon Basilike.)

Godlike shapes and forms
376: Excelling human, Princely Dignities,
377: And Powers that earst in Heaven sat on Thrones;
378: *Though of their Names in heav'nly Records now
379: Be no memorial, blotted out and ras'd
380: By thir Rebellion, from the Books of Life.*

Oxford was deliberately 'blotted and rased' from the rolls of fame/Book of life by a 'conspiracy of Virtue'.

Milton -- I sing the starry axis and the singing hosts in the sky, *and of the gods suddenly destroyed in their own shrines*.

Oxford ‘destroyed’ in his own shrine:

Milton
On Shakespeare. 1630

WHat needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his HALLOW'D RELIQUES should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing PYRAMID?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book,
Those DELPHICK lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us MARBLE with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher'd in such POMP dost lie,
THAT KINGS for such a Tomb WOULD WISH TO DIE.

****************************

APOLLO from his SHRINE/ Can no more divine,/
With hollow shreik the steep of DELPHOS leaving. - Milton

**************************************


John Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" (1629)

...The Babe lies yet in smiling Infancy,
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss;
So both himself and us to glorifie:
Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep, [ 155 ]
The wakefull trump of doom must thunder through the deep,

XVII

With such a horrid clang
As on mount Sinai rang
While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake:
The aged Earth agast [ 160 ]
With terrour of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the center shake,
When at the worlds last session,
The dreadfull Judge in middle Air shall spread his throne.

XVIII

And then at last our bliss [ 165 ]
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for from this happy day
Th' old Dragon under ground,
In *straiter limits bound*,
Not half so far casts his usurped sway, [ 170 ]
And wrath to see his Kingdom fail,
Swindges the scaly Horrour of his foulded tail.

XIX,

The Oracles are dumm,
No voice or hideous humm
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. [ 175 ]
APOLLO from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shreik the steep of DELPHOS leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,
Inspire's the pale-ey'd Priest from the prophetic cell. [ 180 ]

**************************************
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/nativity/notes.shtml#intro

Introduction. John Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" is significant for its merit alone, though this remarkable poem is also important in the context of the artist's career. His first major work in English, the nativity ode reflects "his desire to attempt the highest subjects and to take on the role of bardic Poet-Priest" (Barbara Lewalski, Life of John Milton 38). Milton himself declares such ambition in a letter to his friend Charles Diodati: "I sing to the peace-bringing God descended from heaven, and the blessed generations covenanted in the sacred books,… I sing the starry axis and the singing hosts in the sky, *and of the gods suddenly destroyed in their own shrines*." ("Elegia sexta"). Milton's lofty tone suits he elevation of his artistry, as the nativity ode is the "first realization" of Milton's high poetic aspirations (Lewalski 37).

Stella Revard writes that the poem "marks Milton's coming of age as a Christian English writer" (Milton and the Tangles of Neaera's Hair: The Making of the 1645 Poems 64). Milton's header, "Compos'd 1629,"dates the poem as written in Milton's twenty-first year, leading A.S.P. Woodhouse to call the Ode a coming-of-age poem (Variorum Commentary 41). This is perhaps what Milton intended: the poem appears first in his 1645 Poems, after a frontispiece engraving of himself supposedly at twenty-one. Moreover, as Barbara Lewalski explains, the poem "displays elements that remain constants in Milton's poetry: allusiveness, revisionism, mixture of genres, stunning originality, cosmic scope, prophetic voice" (Lewalski 46). According to Stanley Fish, Milton's works all voice the same concerns (Fish 3). It makes sense, then, that Milton's first major work speaks to his life-long preoccupations.
*************************************
Milton
On Shakespeare. 1630

WHat needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his HALLOW'D RELIQUES should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing PYRAMID?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame, [ 5 ]
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart [ 10 ]
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book,
Those DELPHICK lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us MARBLE with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher'd in such POMP dost lie, [ 15 ]
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die

**************************************
A DISCOURSE OF WIT.
BY David Abercromby, M. D.
Qui velit ingenio cedere rarus erit.
LONDON, Printed for John Weld at the Crown between the two Tem|ple Gates in Fleetstreet, 1686.




3. I cannot then pretend to give you a true and genuine Notion of Wit, but an imperfect, and rude inchoate description thereof, yet so general and comprehensive, that it contains all such Creatures, as without any violence done to the Word, we may truely call Witty. Yet shall I not say with a great Man of this Age, that Wit is, un je ne scay quoy, I know not what: For this would be to say no|thing at all, and an easie answer to all difficulties, and no solution to any. Neither shall I call it a certain Liveliness, or Vivacity of the Mind inbred, or radicated in its Nature, which the Latines seem to insinuate by the word Ingenium; nor the subtlest operation of the Soul above the reach of meer matter, which perhaps is mean't by the French, who concieve Wit to be a Spiritual thing, or a Spi|rit L'esprit. Nor with others, that 'tis a certain acuteness of Undestanding, some men possess in a higher degree, the Life of discourse, as Salt, with|out which nothing is relished, a Ce|lestial Fire, a Spiritual Light, and what not. Such and the like Expressi|ons contain more of POMP THAN OF TRUTH, and are fitter to make us talkative on this Subject, than to en|lighten our Understandings.

***************************************

George Herbert


THE SINNER.

LORD, how I am all ague, when I seek
What I have treasur’d in my memorie !

            Since, if my soul make even with the week,
Each seventh note by right is due to thee.
I finde there quarries of pil’d vanities,
            But shreds of holinesse, that dare not venture
            To shew their face, since crosse to thy decrees :
There the circumference earth is, heav’n the centre.
In so much dregs the quintessence is small :
            The spirit and good extract of my heart
            Comes to about the many hundredth part.
Yet, Lord, restore thine image, heare my call :
            And though my hard heart scarce to thee can grone,
            Remember that thou once didst write in stone. 

**************************************
Salvation History, Poetic Form, and the Logic of Time in Milton's
Nativity Ode

M.J. Doherty

...It helps that Milton's Muse, like the prophet of Isaiah, chaptervi, joins and "Angel Choir,/ From out his secret Altar toucht with hallow'd fire" (27-28). The same kind of poetic parallelism to the liturgical readings of Epiphany shows up in the themes of the coming of the Incarnate Son as the Light and the singing of the New Song who casts out idols. The Lord is everlasting light (Luke iii), the light to the Gentiles (Isa. xlix) that comes at the acceptable time on the day of salvation, the light which, by leading of the star, subordinates all kings and all nations to itself...

...Milton demonstrates the coming of the light by describing the evacuation of darkness, the emptying out of the places of the gods in the earth, from the inmost places of material substance - "And the chill Marble seems to sweat,/ While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat" (195-196) - to the outermost boundary of the "mooned Ashtaroth" (220) From the arches roof of the heavens and the shrine of Apollo at Delphos to the humblest evacuated urn, Christ's light penetrates space, completely expunging darkness. As Milton describes the pagan places of EGYPT, the power of hell is contracted into one spot, Memphis, in Osiris's complete perversion of religion: but in his "sacred chest" Osiris can no longer be at rest because the holy infant reigns.

***********************************
thence on the Snowy top
535: Thir highest Heav'n; or on the DELPHIAN Cliff,

John Milton, Paradise Lost

373: Forthwith from every Squadron and each Band
374: The Heads and Leaders thither hast where stood
375: Their great Commander; Godlike shapes and forms
376: Excelling human, Princely Dignities,
377: And Powers that earst in Heaven sat on Thrones;
378: *Though of their Names in heav'nly Records now
379: Be no memorial, blotted out and ras'd
380: By thir Rebellion, from the Books of Life.* [Oxford's
'idolatrous' representational practices]
381: Nor had they yet among the Sons of EVE
382: Got them new Names, till wandring ore the Earth,
383: Through Gods high sufferance for the tryal of man,
384: By falsities and lyes the greatest part
385: Of Mankind they corrupted to forsake
386: God their Creator, and th' invisible
387: Glory of him, that made them, to transform
388: Oft to the Image of a Brute, adorn'd
389: With gay Religions full of POMP and Gold,
390: And Devils to adore for Deities:
391: Then were they known to men by various Names,
392: And various Idols through the Heathen World.
393: Say, Muse, their Names then known, who first, who
394: last,
395: Rous'd from the slumber, on that fiery Couch,
396: At thir great Emperors call, as next in worth
397: Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
398: While the promiscuous croud stood yet aloof?
399: The chief were those who from the Pit of Hell
400: Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix
401: Their Seats long after next the Seat of God,
402: Their Altars by his Altar, Gods ador'd
403: Among the Nations round, and durst abide
404: JEHOVAH thundring out of SION, thron'd
405: Between the Cherubim; yea, often plac'd
406: Within his Sanctuary it self their Shrines,
407: Abominations; and with cursed things
408: His holy Rites, and solemn Feasts profan'd,
409: And with their darkness durst affront his light.
410: First MOLOCH, horrid King besmear'd with blood
411: Of human sacrifice, and parents tears,
412: Though for the noyse of Drums and Timbrels loud
413: Their childrens cries unheard, that past through fire
414: To his grim Idol.
(snip)
450: For those the Race of ISRAEL oft forsook
451: Their living strength, and unfrequented left
452: His righteous Altar, bowing lowly down
453: To bestial Gods; for which their heads as low
454: Bow'd down in Battel, sunk before the Spear
455: Of despicable foes. With these in troop
456: Came ASTORETH, whom the PHOENICIANS call'd
457: ASTARTE, Queen of Heav'n, with crescent Horns;
458: To whose bright Image nightly by the Moon
459: SIDONIAN Virgins paid their Vows and Songs,
460: In SION also not unsung, where stood
461: Her Temple on th' offensive Mountain, built
462: By that uxorious King, whose heart though large,
463: Beguil'd by fair Idolatresses, fell
464: To Idols foul. THAMMUZ came next behind,
465: Whose annual wound in LEBANON allur'd
466: The SYRIAN Damsels to lament his fate
467: In amorous dittyes all a Summers day,
468: While smooth ADONIS from his native Rock
469: Ran purple to the Sea, suppos'd with blood
470: Of THAMMUZ yearly wounded: the Love-tale
471: Infected SIONS daughters with like heat,
472: Whose wanton passions in the sacred Porch
473: EZEKIEL saw, when by the Vision led
474: His eye survay'd the dark Idolatries
475: Of alienated JUDAH. Next came one
476: Who mourn'd in earnest, when the Captive Ark
477: Maim'd his brute Image, head and hands lopt off
478: In his own Temple, on the grunsel edge,
479: Where he fell flat, and sham'd his Worshipers:
480: DAGON his Name, Sea Monster, upward Man
481: And downward Fish: yet had his Temple high
482: Rear'd in AZOTUS, dreaded through the Coast
483: Of PALESTINE, in GATH and ASCALON,
484: And ACCARON and GAZA's frontier bounds.
485: Him follow'd RIMMON, whose delightful Seat
486: Was fair DAMASCUS, on the fertil Banks
487: Of ABBANA and PHARPHAR, lucid streams.
488: He also against the house of God was bold:
489: A Leper once he lost and gain'd a King,
490: AHAZ his sottish Conquerour, whom he drew
491: Gods Altar to disparage and displace
492: For one of SYRIAN mode, whereon to burn
493: His odious offrings, and adore the Gods
494: Whom he had vanquisht. After these appear'd
495: A CREW who under Names of old Renown,
496: OSIRIS, ISIS, ORUS and their Train
497: *With monstrous shapes and sorceries abus'd*
498: FANATIC EGYPT and her Priests, to seek
499: Thir wandring Gods disguis'd in brutish forms
500: Rather then human. Nor did ISRAEL scape
501: Th' infection when their borrow'd Gold compos'd
502: The Calf in OREB: and the Rebel King
503: Doubl'd that sin in BETHEL and in DAN,
504: Lik'ning his Maker to the Grazed Ox,
505: JEHOVAH, who in one Night when he pass'd
506: From EGYPT marching, equal'd with one stroke
507: Both her first born and all her bleating Gods.
508: BELIAL came last, then whom a Spirit more lewd
509: Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love
510: Vice for it self: To him no Temple stood
511: Or Altar smoak'd; yet who more oft then hee
512: In Temples and at Altars, when the Priest
513: Turns Atheist, as did ELY'S Sons, who fill'd
514: With lust and violence the house of God.
515: In Courts and Palaces he also Reigns
516: And in luxurious Cities, where the noyse
517: Of riot ascends above thir loftiest Towrs,
518: And injury and outrage: And when Night
519: Darkens the Streets, then wander forth the Sons
520: Of BELIAL, flown with insolence and wine.
521: Witness the Streets of SODOM, and that night
522: In GIBEAH, when hospitable Dores
523: Yielded thir Matrons to prevent worse rape.
524: These were the prime in order and in might;
525: The rest were long to tell, though far renown'd,
526: Th' IONIAN Gods, of JAVANS Issue held
527: Gods, yet confest later then Heav'n and Earth
528: Thir boasted Parents; TITAN Heav'ns first born
529: With his enormous brood, and birthright seis'd
530: By younger SATURN, he from mightier JOVE
531: His own and RHEA'S Son like measure found;
532: So JOVE usurping reign'd: these first in CREET
533: And IDA known, thence on the Snowy top
535: Thir highest Heav'n; or on the DELPHIAN Cliff,
536: Or in DODONA, and through all the bounds
537: Of DORIC Land; or who with SATURN old
538: Fled over ADRIA to th' HESPERIAN Fields,
539: And ore the CELTIC roam'd the utmost Isles.
540: All these and more came flocking; but with looks
541: Down cast and damp, yet such wherein appear'd
542: Obscure som glimps of joy, to have found thir chief
543: Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost
544: In loss it self; which on his count'nance cast
545: Like doubtful hue: but he his wonted pride
546: Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore
547: Semblance of worth not substance, gently rais'd
548: Their fainted courage, and dispel'd their fears.

**************************************
Milton, Paradise Regained

451: The other service was thy chosen task,
452: To be a liar in four hundred mouths;
453: For lying is thy sustenance, thy food.
454: Yet thou pretend'st to truth! all oracles
455: By thee are given, and what confessed more true
456: Among the nations? That hath been thy craft,
457: By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies.
458: But what have been thy answers? what but dark,
459: Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding,
460: Which they who asked have seldom understood,
461: And, not well understood, as good not known?
462: Who ever, by consulting at thy shrine,
463: Returned the wiser, or the more instruct
464: To fly or follow what concerned him most,
465: And run not sooner to his fatal snare?
466: For God hath justly given the nations up
467: To thy delusions; justly, since they fell
468: Idolatrous. But, when his purpose is
469: Among them to declare his providence,
470: To thee not known, whence hast thou then thy truth,
471: But from him, or his Angels president
472: In every province, who, themselves disdaining
473: To approach thy temples, give thee in command
474: What, to the smallest tittle, thou shalt say
475: To thy adorers? Thou, with trembling fear,
476: Or like a fawning parasite, obey'st;
477: Then to thyself ascrib'st the truth foretold.
478: But this thy glory shall be soon retrenched;
479: No more shalt thou by oracling abuse
481: And thou no more with POMP and sacrifice
482: Shalt be enquired at DELPHOS or elsewhere--
483: At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute.
484: God hath now sent his living Oracle
485: Into the world to teach his final will,
486: And sends his Spirit of Truth henceforth to dwell
487: In pious hearts, an inward oracle
488: To all truth requisite for men to know."
489:
490: So spake our Saviour;

*************************************
Milton

After these appear'd
495: A CREW who under Names of old Renown,
496: OSIRIS, ISIS, ORUS and their Train
497: *With monstrous shapes and sorceries abus'd*
498: FANATIC EGYPT and her Priests, to seek
499: Thir wandring Gods disguis'd in brutish forms
500: Rather then human.

**************************************
Oxford/Shakespeare/Comus (demonic eloquence)

Milton, John: Comus

118: COMUS enters, with a charming-rod in one hand, his glass in the
119: other: with him a rout of monsters, headed like sundry sorts of
120: wild
121: beasts, but otherwise like men and women, their apparel
122: glistering.
123: They come in making a riotous and unruly noise, with torches in
124: their hands.
125:
126:
127: COMUS. The star that bids the shepherd fold
128: Now the top of heaven doth hold;
129: And the gilded car of day
130: His glowing axle doth allay
131: In the steep Atlantic stream;
132: And the slope sun his upward beam
133: Shoots against the dusky pole,
134: Pacing toward the other goal
135: Of his chamber in the east.
136: Meanwhile, welcome joy and feast,
137: Midnight shout and revelry,
138: Tipsy dance and jollity.
139: Braid your locks with rosy twine,
140: Dropping odours, dropping wine.
141: Rigour now is gone to bed;
142: And Advice with scrupulous head,
143: Strict Age, and sour Severity,
144: With their grave saws, in slumber lie.
145: We, that are of purer fire,
146: Imitate the starry quire,
147: Who, in their nightly watchful spheres,
148: Lead in swift round the months and years.
149: The sounds and seas, with all their finny drove,
150: Now to the moon in wavering morrice move;
151: And on the tawny sands and shelves
152: Trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.
153: By dimpled brook and fountain-brim,
154: The wood-nymphs, decked with daisies trim,
155: Their merry wakes and pastimes keep:
156: What hath night to do with sleep?
157: Night hath better sweets to prove;
158: Venus now wakes, and wakens Love.
159: Come, let us our rights begin;
160: 'T is only daylight that makes sin,
161: Which these dun shades will ne'er report.
162: Hail, goddess of nocturnal sport,
163: Dark-veiled Cotytto, to whom the secret flame
164: Of midnight torches burns! mysterious dame,
165: That ne'er art called but when the dragon womb
166: Of Stygian darkness spets her thickest gloom,
167: And makes one blot of all the air!
168: Stay thy cloudy ebon chair,
169: Wherein thou ridest with Hecat', and befriend
170: Us thy vowed priests, till utmost end
171: Of all thy dues be done, and none left out,
172: Ere the blabbing eastern scout,
173: The nice Morn on the Indian steep,
174: From her cabined loop-hole peep,
175: And to the tell-tale Sun descry
176: Our concealed solemnity.
178: In a LIGHT FANTASTIC round.
179:
180: The Measure.
181:
182: Break off, break off! I feel the different pace
183: Of some chaste footing near about this ground.
184: Run to your shrouds within these brakes and trees;
185: Our number may affright. Some virgin sure
186: (For so I can distinguish by mine art)
187: Benighted in these woods! Now to my charms,
188: And to my wily trains: I shall ere long
189: Be well stocked with as fair a herd as grazed
190: About my mother Circe. Thus I hurl
191: My dazzling spells into the spongy air,
192: Of power to cheat the eye with blear illusion,
193: And give it false presentments, lest the place
194: And my quaint habits breed astonishment,
195: And put the damsel to suspicious flight;
196: Which must not be, for that's against my course.
197: I, under fair pretence of friendly ends,
198: And well-placed words of glozing courtesy,
199: Baited with reasons not unplausible,
200: Wind me into the easy-hearted man,
201: And hug him into snares. When once her eye
202: Hath met the virtue of this magic dust,
203: I shall appear some harmless villager
204: Whom thrift keeps up about his country gear.
205: But here she comes; I fairly step aside,
206: And hearken, if I may her business hear.
207:
208: The LADY enters.
209:
210: LADY. This way the noise was, if mine ear be true,
211: My best guide now. Methought it was the sound
212: Of riot and ill-managed merriment,
213: Such as the jocund flute or gamesome pipe
214: Stirs up among the loose unlettered hinds,
215: When, for their teeming flocks and granges full,
216: In wanton dance they praise the bounteous Pan,
217: And thank the gods amiss. I should be loth
218: To meet the rudeness and swilled insolence
219: Of such late wassailers; yet, oh! where else
220: Shall I inform my unacquainted feet
221: In the blind mazes of this tangled wood?

**************************************
Thou in our wonder and ASTONISHMENT
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.

**************************************
Pondering Satan's Shield in Milton's Paradise Lost
English Literary renaissance (0013-8312) dobranski yr.2005 vol:35 iss:
3
pg:490

In this essay I would like to address how Satan's "ponderous shield"(I, 284) from this same passage also advances Milton's Christian epic. Commentators have traditionally glossed the lunar metaphor that Milton uses for Satan's shield as either an allusion to Achilles'"massive shield flashing far and wide / like a full round moon," or an echo of Radigund's lunar armament as she challenges Artegall in The Faerie Queene.5 I want to offer a new reading of Milton's epic simile by turning to contemporary discoveries in the natural world. When examined in the context of Renaissance warfare and, perhaps surprisingly, seventeenth-century animal histories, Satan's shield symbolizes, updates, and subverts his heroic aspirations, and simultaneously it exposes his amphibious nature, creeping from lake to land, and transgressing from heaven to hell.

To understand fully the implications of the devil's armament, we first need to recall that Milton had come to accept a monistic concept of the body and soul by the time he wrote Paradise Lost. His mature works reflect the belief that the body and soul are different degrees of the same substance. As Raphael succinctly puts it, "one first matter all, /
Indued with various forms, various degrees / Of substance, and in things that live, of life" (V, 472-74). When, accordingly, Satan falls from heaven, his fall is not only moral but also material (and spatial and temporal); that is, Satan's spirit becomes less rarefied, and he literally hardens (I, 572).6 If, as Raphael goes on to explain, God's creations are "more refined, more spirituous, and pure, / As nearer to him placed or nearer tending" (V, 475-76), then, conversely, when Satan turns away from God, he must become less refined, less spirituous, less pure. Satan's dependence on material weapons suggests this corporeal decline while pointing up his destructive narcissism: the devil is attracted to things like himself that are more matter than spirit. Instead of returning to God and seeking forgiveness, he again and again puts his faith in things, whether a sword, shield, or apple.

Within this philosophical context Satan's armament in particular illustrates the folly of his rebellion. Unlike the spiritual armor that St. Paul described in his letter to the Ephesians (Eph. 6.11-17), Satan's shield actually exists but it fails to protect him, first from Abdiel (VI, 192-93), then from Michael (VI, 323-28), until finally the rebels drop their shields while fleeing the Son:

they ASTONISHED all resistance lost,
All courage; down their idle weapons dropped;
O'er shields and helms, and helmèd heads he rode
Of thrones and mighty seraphim prostráte. (VI, 838-41)

That the Son rides roughshod over the rebels' weapons symbolizes both his imminent victory over Satan and the ascendance of a new type of heroism that will obviate traditional emblems of war. While this image of discarded armament is hardly original to Milton, the specific term"astonished" punningly suggests the link between the rebels' material arms and their own material debasement: the rebels may drop their weapons, but their forms, like their hearts, are already becoming "stony."7 Later, Milton will repeat this image when Satan, returning to Hell, expects to hear his cohorts'"high applause" but is instead confronted with "A dismal universal hiss" as God changes the rebels into serpents (X, 505, 508). Once again, the devils' moral and material fall is figured in their hardening forms and falling weapons: "down their arms / Down fell both spear and shield, down they as fast" (X,541-42).8 Milton invokes, too, Dante's concept of contrapasso as Satan and the rebels are "punished in the shape he sinned" (X, 516). They not only take the shape of snakes, but also, having taken up material arms in a war against God, they fittingly come to resemble their own lost shields, fallen and hardened.

******************************

_Comus_, Milton

Comus: Nay Lady sit; if I but wave this wand
Your nerves are all chain'd up in Alablaster,
And you a statue; or as Daphne was
Root-bound, that fled Apollo

Lady: Fool do not boast,
Thou canst not touch the freedom of my minde
With all thy charms, although this corporal rinde
Thou hast immanacl'd, while Heav'n sees good

******************************

Then thou our FANCY of it self bereaving,
Doth make us MARBLE with too much conceaving;

_Imagination and the Presence of Shakespeare in Paradise Lost_. By Paul Stevens. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985.
Review by Nigel Smith

Imagination and the Presence of Shakespeare in 'Paradise Lost' is probably a mistitled book. Professor Stevens is certainly concerned with theories of imagination and the way in which these theories helped to determine the language of Milton's epic. There is also a consideration of Shakespeare's presence, confined mostly to instances in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ and _The Tempest_. The significance of echoes from other plays are discussed, though a central consideration of echoes from the tragedies would have produced a very different work.
As the book stands, we are shown how Milton takes the Shakespearean incarnation of FANCY and modifies it, so that it becomes associated,via COMUS, with evil in Paradise Lost, unless it is governed by Reason, so reflecting the divine.

*****************************


Ascham, The Scholemaster

**But I know as many, or mo, and some, sometyme my deare frendes, for whose sake I hate going into that countrey the more, who, partyng out of England feruent in the loue of Christes doctrine, and well furnished with the feare of God, returned out of Italie worse transformed, than euer was any in CIRCES Court. I know diuerse, that went out of England, men of innocent life, men of excellent learnyng, who returned out of Italie, not onely with worse maners, but also with lesse learnyng: neither so willing to liue orderly, nor yet so hable to speake learnedlie, as they were at home, before they went abroad. And why? Plato yt wise writer, and worthy traueler him selfe, telleth the cause why. He went into Sicilia, a countrey, no nigher Italy by site of place, than Italie that is now, is like Sicilia that was then, in all corrupt maners and licenciousnes of life. Plato found in Sicilia, euery Citie full of vanitie, full of factions, euen as Italie is now. And as Homere, like a learned Poete, doth feyne, that CIRCES, by pleasant inchantmentes, did turne men into beastes, some into Swine, som
Plat. ad Dionys. Epist. 3. The fruits of vayne pleasure.
Causes why men returne out of Italie, lesse learned and worse manered.
Homer and Plato ioyned and expounded.
A Swyne.
An Asse.
A Foxe.


aphrosyne, Quid, et vnde.
into Asses, some into Foxes, some into Wolues etc. euen so Plato, like a wise Philosopher, doth plainelie declare, that pleasure, by licentious vanitie, that sweete and perilous poyson of all youth, doth ingender in all those, that yeld vp themselues to her, foure notorious properties.
{1. lethen
{2. dysmathian
{3. achrosynen
{4. ybrin.
      The first, forgetfulnes of all good thinges learned before: the second, dulnes to receyue either learnyng or honestie euer after: the third, a mynde embracing lightlie the worse opinion, and baren of discretion to make trewe difference betwixt good and ill, betwixt troth, and vanitie, the fourth, a proude disdainfulnes of other good men, in all honest matters. Homere and Plato, haue both one meanyng, looke both to one end. For, if a man inglutte himself with vanitie, or walter in filthines like a Swyne, all learnyng, all goodnes, is sone forgotten: Than, quicklie shall he becum a dull Asse, to vnderstand either learnyng or honestie: and yet shall he be as sutle as a Foxe, in breedyng of mischief, in bringyng in misorder, with a busie head, a discoursing tong, and a factious harte, in euery priuate affaire, in all matters of state, with this pretie propertie, alwayes glad to commend the worse partie, and euer ready to defend the falser opinion. And why? For, where will is giuen from goodnes to vanitie, the mynde is sone caryed from right iudgement, to any fond opinion, in Religion, in Philosophie, or any other kynde of learning. The fourth fruite of vaine pleasure, by Homer and Platos iudgement, is pride in them selues, contempt of others, the very badge of all those that serue in Circes Court. The trewe meenyng of both Homer and Plato, is plainlie declared in one short sentence of the holy Prophet of God Hieremie, crying out of the vaine & vicious life of the Israelites. This people (sayth he) be fooles and dulhedes to all goodnes, but sotle, cunning and bolde, in any mischiefe. 
(SNIP)
But I am affraide, that ouer many of our trauelers into Italie, do not exchewe the way to CIRCES Court: but go, and ryde, and runne, and flie thether, they make great hast to cum to her: they make great sute to serue her: yea, I could point out some with my finger, that neuer had gone out of England, but onelie to serue CIRCES, in Italie. Vanitie and vice, and any licence to ill liuyng in England was counted stale and rude vnto them. And so, beyng
Plat. ad Dio.
Psal. 32.
Psal. 33.
A trewe Picture of a knight of Circes Court.
Mules and Horses before they went, returned verie Swyne and Asses home agayne: yet euerie where verie Foxes with suttle and busie heades; and where they may, verie wolues, with cruell malicious hartes. A meruelous monster, which, for filthines of liuyng, for dulnes to learning him selfe, for wilinesse in dealing with others, for malice in hurting without cause, should carie at once in one bodie, the belie of a Swyne, the head of an Asse, the brayne of a Foxe, the wombe of a wolfe. If you thinke, we iudge amisse, and write to sore against you, heare, what the Italian sayth of the English man, what the master reporteth of the scholer: who vttereth playnlie, what is taught by him, and what learned by you, saying, Englese Italianato, e vn diabolo incarnato, that is to say, you remaine men in shape and facion, but becum deuils in life and condition. This is not, the opinion of one, for some priuate spite, but the iudgement of all, in a common Prouerbe, which riseth, of that learnyng, and those maners, which you gather in Italie: a good Scholehouse of wholesome doctrine: and worthy Masters of commendable Scholers, where the Master had rather diffame hym selfe for hys teachyng, than not shame his Scholer for his learning. A good nature of the maister, and faire conditions of the
The Italians iudgement of Englishmen brought vp in Italie. The Italian diffameth him selfe, to shame the Englishe man.
An English man Italianated.

The {1 Religion.}
{2 Learning.}
{4 Pollicie.}
{4 Experience.}
{5 Maners.}
gotten in Italie.
Italian bokes translated into English.
scholers. And now chose you, you Italian English men, whether you will be angrie with vs, for calling you monsters, or with the Italianes, for callyng you deuils, or else with your owne selues, that take so much paines, and go so farre, to make your selues both. If some yet do not well vnderstand, what is an English man Italianated, I will plainlie tell him. He, that by liuing, & traueling in Italie, bringeth home into England out of Italie, the Religion, the learning, the policie, the experience, the maners of Italie. That is to say, for Religion, Papistrie or worse: for learnyng, lesse commonly than they caried out with them: for pollicie, a factious hart, a discoursing head, a mynde to medle in all mens matters: for experience, plentie of new mischieues neuer knowne in England before: for maners, varietie of vanities, and chaunge of filthy lyuing. These be the inchantementes of CIRCES, brought out of Italie, to marre mens maners in England: much, by example of ill life, but more by preceptes of fonde bookes, of late translated out of Italian into English, sold in euery shop in London, commended by honest titles the soner to corrupt honest maners: dedicated ouer boldlie to vertuous and honorable personages, the easielier to begile simple and innocent wittes. image: dingbat of hand pointing to the right It is pitie, that those, which haue authoritie and charge, to allow and dissalow bookes to be printed, be no more circumspect herein, than they are. Ten Sermons at Paules Crosse do not so moch good for mouyng men to trewe doctrine, as one of those bookes do harme, with inticing men to ill liuing. Yea, I say farder, those bookes, tend not so moch to corrupt honest liuyng, as they do, to subuert trewe Religion. Mo Papistes be made, by your mery bookes of Italie, than by your earnest bookes of Louain.


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Gabriel Harvey's satirical portrait of the Earl of Oxford:

Speculum Tuscanismi

Since Galatea came in, and Tuscanism gan usurp,
Vanity above all: villainy next her, stateliness Empress
No man but minion, stout, lout, plain, swain, quoth a Lording:
No words but valorous, no works but womanish only.
For life Magnificoes, not a beck but glorious in show,
In deed most frivolous, not a look but Tuscanish always.
His cringing side neck, eyes glancing, fisnamy smirking,
With forefinger kiss, and brave embrace to the footward.
Large bellied Cod-pieced doublet, uncod-pieced half hose,
Straight to the dock like a shirt, and close to the britch like a
diveling.
A little Apish flat couched fast to the pate like an oyster,
French camarick ruffs, deep with a whiteness starched to the purpose.
Every one A per se A, his terms and braveries in print,
Delicate in speech, quaint in array: conceited in all points,
In Courtly guiles a passing singular odd man,
For Gallants a brave Mirror, a Primrose of Honour,
A Diamond for nonce, a fellow peerless in England.
Not the like discourser for Tongue, and head to be found out,
Not the like resolute man for great and serious affairs,
Not the like Lynx to spy out secrets and privities of States,
Eyed like to Argus, eared like to Midas, nos'd like to Naso,
Wing'd like to Mercury, fittst of a thousand for to be employ'd,
This, nay more than this, doth practice of Italy in one year.
None do I name, but some do I know, that a piece of a twelve month
Hath so perfited outly and inly both body, both soul,
That none for sense and senses half matchable with them.
A vulture's smelling, Ape's tasting, sight of an eagle,
A spider's touching, Hart's hearing, might of a Lion.
Compounds of wisdom, wit, prowess, bounty, behavior,
All gallant virtues, all qualities of body and soul.
O thrice ten hundred thousand times blessed and happy,
Blessed and happy travail, Travailer most blessed and happy.