Alas! what boots it with incessant care
To tend the homely, slighted shepherd’s trade,
And strictly meditate the thankless Muse?
John Milton, overwhelmed with grief at the loss of his young poet friend, shouts out a poignant question to the very muses that he invoked at the beginning of the poem, Lycidas. Of what profit to ‘meditate the thankless Muse?’ Why labour; would it not be better to surrender to a life of pleasure and comfort instead of toiling for one’s craft, the ‘slighted shepherd’s trade’? Why labour when the muses themselves cannot protect the poets who worship them?
The poem, a pastoral-elegy, was written in memory of his poet friend Edward King who died at sea. And in true pastoral tradition, Milton uses a frequently used name (Lycidas) instead of Edward. Although they were not intimate friends, Edward’s death appears to have deeply shaken Milton, perhaps even bringing his mind to dwell on his own mortality; in 1637-38 when the poem was written, London was still gripped by the plague, and his mother had only recently passed away.
Why bother creating art, when death—capricious, fickle, and heartless—is ever watching and can snatch away the poet, as it took away Edward King, so early in his life? Milton provides the answer himself, perhaps familiar with the shape of his own motivations.
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days;
The reason is fame. Fame—the disease of an otherwise sound and noble mind. It is to hear the applause ring that the artist chooses to ‘scorn delights and live laborious days’. An echo of Tacitus, who wrote in Histories: “for even the wise man the desire of glory is the last to be put aside.”
But Milton isn’t satisfied with this. For he knows well that earthly fame is fleeting and Time’s scythe will still have the final say, when every artist’s reward and fame, “within his bending sickle’s compass come” (as Shakespeare puts it in Sonnet 116).
But the fair *guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th’abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.
*reward
Why labour? The question still lingers until Phoebus (the god of poetry) answers, that it isn’t fame on the earthly realm that artists should gather for themselves. They should instead desire the heavenly reward, the true prize for one’s righteousness and just acts. “Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil,” Phoebus declares. It lives and spreads in Jove’s pure eyes—
As he pronounces lastly on each deed,
Of so much fame in Heav’n expect thy meed.
Milton’s poetry is a crucible of classical themes featuring a vast array of Roman and Greek gods, and Christian theology and his works ring loud with the clash of these opposing traditions. This constant push-and-pull eventually leads him to the answer. When faced with the question, why labour, he is forced to find his comfort and remedy in the mystical and spiritual realm. The struggles and questions are earthly, but the answers come from the heavens.
The answer also resolves the underlying tension between the classical form and his faith. The aspiration for the artist is not to create for earthly fame, but heavenly rewards. Christian consolation is Milton’s answer to pagan mourning. By using the classical (pagan) tradition to present themes of death, sorrow, and the futility of the artists’s ambition and then clarifying them using the Christian tradition, Milton asserts the superiority of the latter over the former.
From this perspective, his question, why labour, relates to more than just an artist’s exertions; it is a question mark over all human endeavours. Milton finds his answer: it is immortality. But not in the transient, temporary, earthly way, but as the everlasting reward from god for one’s purity of thought and action.
For Milton, poetry was a spiritual vocation forever in service of his god. And Lycidas can be seen as his early steps in trying to rationalise and reconcile god’s ways to the human condition. While we may never know the extent of Milton’s heavenly rewards, we are certain about his enduring legacy here on earth. A little less than four centuries after his death, his work remains an essential part of the our literary canon.
As he wrote Paradise Lost, racing against the blindness that was gradually extinguishing the world around him, perhaps the question why labour often flashed through his mind. An agony he describes in the heartbreaking Sonnet 19, where he laments that his blindness has robbed him of “…one Talent which is death to hide” and consequently of his very purpose in life. Again, his counsel and comfort comes from Patience who gently asks him in the language of his faith to “bear his milde yoak”. Milton is reminded that the purpose of his labours, the practice of his vocation, is not for its own sake but for the service of his god. Whereupon, the poet pens one of the most moving reassurances: “They also serve who only stand and waite.”
And so, with his heart’s gaze firmly fixed on the starry realms above, Milton strove for his eternal rewards. And in so doing, he also achieved the mantle of earthly fame, and though he set it aside, he could not shake it off. It is a powerful reminder that when one practises one’s art and calling wholly and truly in service of a greater purpose, material gain and earthly recompense follow—often in ways the poet themselves had not imagined.
As the poem progresses, the dark clouds pass, the tears are wiped away, and Milton exclaims:
Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no more,
For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead,
Sunk though he be beneath the wat’ry floor;
And Lycidas himself, in the heavens, “sunk low but mounted high” has his own tears wiped away:
In the blest kingdoms meek of joy and love
There entertain him all the Saints above
Leave a Reply