“Studious Retirement” 1632–1638tensive revisions that do some violence to Milton’s conception and with which he
had little or nothing to do; the Bridgewater manuscript is substantially a record of
the acting version.^42 Part of the Epilogue is transferred to the beginning to make a
catchy opening song for the Attendant Spirit. Lady Alice’s long part is much short-
ened, in part perhaps to make fewer performance demands on the young girl, but
chiefly to blunt the sexual threat to her. Her expressions of fear and vulnerability
are cut, as are Comus’s explicit sexual advances and his arguments against virgin-
ity.^43 Not surprisingly, the parts of the brothers are expanded: in the acting version
though not in Milton’s text the Elder Brother helps to summon Sabrina and direct
the return home. Clearly, the young heir had to be given a more active and more
successful role than Milton had allowed for.
On December 4, 1634 Milton answered a Latin letter and poem from Alexander
Gil with a Latin letter and a Greek version of Psalm 114 which, he states, was
composed on impulse a week before, “according to the rules of Greek Heroic
song” (CPW I, 321). He excuses his possibly rusty Greek by explaining that he has
not written poetry in that language since leaving school, because in this age a Greek
poet “sings mostly to the deaf.” His poem’s heroic matter and manner contrast as
sharply as possible with the witty, titillating epithalamium Gil sent him.^44 He turned
back to the psalm he had rendered into English as a schoolboy, still finding contem-
porary relevance in that celebration of Israel’s deliverance from Egyptian tyranny,
and indeed sharpening the political point by a translation terming God the only
rightful king of his people: “Only surely then were the Children of Juda a holy
race, / And among the people God was king ruling strongly.”^45 Milton may have
hoped his psalm would prompt his friend to return to his earlier poetic vein, cel-
ebrating Protestant militancy.^46 He ends his letter with a proposal to meet Gil in
London the following Monday “among the booksellers,” i.e. in St Paul’s Church-
yard; the casual arrangement suggests they may often have met there. He also urges
Gil cryptically “to promote our business with that Doctor, this year’s President of
the College,” and to “go to him immediately on my behalf” (CPW I, 322). Milton
may have been seeking access to the library at Sion College, the corporate body of
ministers in London, to further his historical studies,^47 or perhaps to Gresham Col-
lege to pursue his mathematical and musical interests.
For nearly three years after this, Milton wrote no poetry, or none that he pre-
served. On July 28, 1635 he may have attended the wedding of John Diodati
(Charles’s brother) at St Margaret’s, Westminster, and enjoyed a reunion with his
friend.^48 On November 17, 1635, Alexander Gil senior died at age 71; and Milton
would have learned soon that his friend succeeded to his father’s post as High
Master of St Paul’s School.^49
Sometime in 1636 the Miltons moved to Horton, a peaceful village close to Windsor,
nestled among the trees and brooks and meadows of Berkshire.^50 As Christopher Hill
notes, it was not quite a pastoral retreat: the Horton papermill was a trouble site, and
nearby Colnbrook had some history of radical activity.^51 But it had and has a village