John Milton - Sabrina Fair, excerpted from the poem Comus

The Water Nymphs come to save Sabrina (pg 174)

from The Poetical Works of John Milton, Vol 2, with Memoir and Critical
Remarks by James Montgomery, W. Kent & Co (London), 1859

Engravings by John Thompson, S. and T. Williams,
O. Smith, J. Linton, etc; from drawings by William Harvey

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Restoration Verse. 1910.

http://www.bartleby.com/332/95.html

Song: ‘Sabrina fair’

By John Milton (1608–1674)

From ‘Comus’ iii SABRINA fair   Listen where thou art sitting Under the glassie, cool, translucent wave,   In twisted braids of Lillies knitting The loose train of thy amber-droping 1 hair,         5   Listen for dear honour’s sake,   Goddess of the silver lake,                     Listen and save. Listen and appear to us In name of great Oceanus, 2         10 By the earth-shaking Neptune’s 3 mace, And Tethys 4 grave majestick pace, By hoary Nereus 5 wrincled look, And the Carpathian wisards 6 hook, By scaly Tritons 7 winding shell,         15 And old sooth-saying Glaucus 8 spell, By Leucothea’s 9 lovely hands, And her son that rules the strands, By Thetis 10 tinsel-slipper’d feet, And the Songs of Sirens sweet,         20 By dead Parthenope’s 11 dear tomb, And fair Ligea’s 12 golden comb, Wherwith she sits on diamond rocks Sleeking her soft alluring locks, By all the Nymphs that nightly dance         25 Upon thy streams with wily glance, Rise, rise, and heave thy rosie head From thy coral-pav’n bed, And bridle in thy headlong wave, Till thou our summons answered have.         30                     Listen and save. Sabrina rises, attended by water-Nymphes, and sings   By the rushy-fringed bank, Where grows the Willow and the Osier dank,   My sliding Chariot stayes, Thick set with Agat, and the azurn sheen         35 Of Turkis blew, and Emrauld green   That in the channell strayes, Whilst from off the waters fleet Thus I set my printless feet O’re the Cowslips Velvet head,         40   That bends not as I tread, Gentle swain at thy request   I am here. Spirit.  Goddess dear We implore thy powerful hand         45 To’ undo the charmèd band Of true Virgin here distrest, Through the force, and through the wile Of unblest inchanter vile. Sabrina.  Shepherd ’tis my office best         50 To help insnared chastity; Brightest Lady look on me, Thus I sprinkle on thy brest Drops that from my fountain pure, I have kept of pretious cure,         55 Thrice upon thy fingers tip Thrice upon thy rubied lip, Next this marble venom’d seat Smear’d with gumms of glutenous heat I touch with chaste palms moist and cold,         60 Now the spell hath lost his hold; And I must haste ere morning hour To wait in Amphitrite’s bowr. - John Milton Note 1. Amber-dropping: “Hair of amber colour with the waterdrops falling through it.” (Masson). [back] Note 2. Oceanus: god of the great ocean-stream which Homer supposed to encircle the earth. [back] Note 3. Neptune: god of the sea after Saturn was overthrown. [back] Note 4. Tethys: wife of Oceanus. [back] Note 5. Nereus: father of the Nereids. [back] Note 6. The Carpathian wizard: Proteus whose home was the island of Carpathus, who had the prophetic and could change his form at will. [back] Note 7. Tritons: son of Neptune and Amphitrite, was trumpeter of the ocean, who with his sea-shell could stir or quiet the waves. [back] Note 8. Glaucus: a Bœotian fisherman, who having eaten a magic web, was changed into a sea-god with prophetic powers. [back] Note 9. Leucothea, was Ino, the daughter of Cadmus, who to escape the furies of her mad husband, Athamas, plunged into the sea with her son Melicertes, and became a sea-goddess. Melicertes became the sea-god Palæmon, and is associated by the Romans as the god of harbours. [back] Note 10. Thetis: a daughter of Nereus, and mother of Achilles. [back] Note 11. Parthenope: a sea-nymph, to whom a shrine was erected at Naples, where her dead body was washed ashore. [back] Note 12. Ligea: one of the Sirens. [back]

Sabrina encounters the debauched Comus while lost in the wood (pg 167)

from The Poetical Works of John Milton, Vol 2, with Memoir and Critical
Remarks by James Montgomery, W. Kent & Co (London), 1859

Engravings by John Thompson, S. and T. Williams,
O. Smith, J. Linton, etc; from drawings by William Harvey

Resources to the Poem

Direct Quote (pg 173) from The Poetical Works of John Milton, W. Kent & Co, London, 1859 - click link here

William Stanley Braithwaite's The Book of Restoration Verse - clink link here
found under Song: ‘Sabrina fair’ by John Milton

Braithwaite's The Book Of Restoration Verse, Vol 1

Braithwaite's The Book of Restoration Verse, Vol 2

Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comus_(John_Milton)

Bullfinches Mythology - Stories of Gods and HeroesChapter XXIV. Orpheus and Eurydice--Aristaeus--Amphion--Linus--Thamyris--Marsyas--Melampus--Musaeus

Complete text of poems Arcade and Comus with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes

by A. Wilson Verity, published Cambridge, The University Press, 1891 - click link here

Biography of Author

http://www.poemhunter.com/john-milton/biography/

John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth (republic) of England under Oliver Cromwell. He wrote at a time of religious flux and political upheaval, and is best known for his epic poem Paradise Lost.

Milton's poetry and prose reflect deep personal convictions, a passion for freedom and self determination, and the urgent issues and political turbulence of his day. Writing in English, Latin, and Italian, he achieved international renown within his lifetime, and his celebrated Areopagitica, (written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship) is among history's most influential and impassioned defenses of free speech and freedom of the press.

William Hayley's 1796 biography called him the "greatest English author", and he remains generally regarded "as one of the preeminent writers in the English language"; though critical reception has oscillated in the centuries since his death (often on account of his republicanism). Samuel Johnson praised Paradise Lost as "a poem which...with respect to design may claim the first place, and with respect to performance, the second, among the productions of the human mind". Though Johnson (a Tory and recipient of royal patronage) described his politics as those of an "acrimonious and surly republican".

Because of his republicanism, Milton has been the subject of centuries of British partisanship (a "nonconformist" biography by John Toland, a hostile account by Anthony à Wood etc.).

(Partial) Biography

The phases of Milton's life parallel the major historical and political divisions in Stuart Britain. Under the increasingly personal rule of Charles I and its breakdown in constitutional confusion and war, Milton studied, travelled, wrote poetry mostly for private circulation, and launched a career as pamphleteer and publicist. Under the Commonwealth of England, from being thought dangerously radical and even heretical, the shift in accepted attitudes in government placed him in public office, and he even acted as an official spokesman in certain of his publications. The Restoration of 1660 deprived Milton, now completely blind, of his public platform, but this period saw him complete most of his major works of poetry.

Milton's views developed from his very extensive reading, as well as travel and experience, from his student days of the 1620s to the English Revolution. By the time of his death in 1674, Milton was impoverished and on the margins of English intellectual life, yet unrepentant for his political choices, and of Europe-wide fame.

Complete Biographies & Additional Resources

Poem Hunter - http://www.poemhunter.com/john-milton/biography/

Poetry Foundation - http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-milton#poet

Wikipedia Bio - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_milton

Amazon Links to John Milton

List of Poetry Books - click here

List for Comus - click here