Notes to Chapter 1colimus Phoebum, nos munera Phoebo.”
111 Revard, Tangles of Neaera’s Hair, 217–18.
112 Ll. 78–84: “O mihi si mea sors talem concedat amicum / Phoebaeos decorasse viros
qui tam bene norit, / Si quando indigenas revocabo in carmina reges, / Arturumque
etiam sub terris bella moventem; / Aut dicam invictae sociali foedere mensae,
Magnanimos Heroas, & (O modo spiritus ad sit) / Frangam Saxonicas Britonum sub
Marte phalanges.” Milton’s choice of subject sets his projected poem in the tradition
of Spenser’s Faerie Queene.
113 Ll. 49–55: “Fortunate senex, ergo quacunque per orbem / Torquati decus & nomen,
celebrabitur ingens, / Claraque perpetui succrescet fama Marini, / Tu quoque in ora
frequens venies plausumque virorum, / Et parili carpes iter immortale volatu.”
114 R. W. Condee, “The Latin Poetry of John Milton,” in The Latin Poetry of the English
Poets, ed. J. W. Binns (London, 1974), 78–9, points to the pun on Manso’s name,
linking him to Chiron: “Nobile mansueti cessit Chironis in antrum,” l. 60. Cf. Revard,
Tangles of Neaera’s Hair, 219–24.
115 Ll. 94–100: “Tum quoque, si qua fides, si praemia certa bonorum, / Ipse ego caelicolum
semotus in aethera divum, / Quo labor & mens pura vehunt, atque ignea virtus / Secreti
haec aliqua mundi de parte videbo / (Quantum fata sinunt), & tota mente serenum /
Ridens purpureo suffundar lumine vultus / Et simul aethereo plaudam mihi laetus Olympo.”
116 Cf. Horace, Satires, I.l.64–7. See Low, “Mansus: In its Context,” 123.
117 The term carries that sense in the titles of funeral poems by Bion and Moschus. For the
generic distinctions between elegos, epikedion, and epitaphios in the Hellenistic period,
see Gordon Campbell, “Imitation in Epitaphium Damonis,” Urbane Milton, ed. Free-
man and Low, 165–8.
118 The Variorum records some 70 citations of Virgil’s Eclogues (especially nos. 5 and 10),
35 to the Georgics, and 40 to the Aeneid. The words of the refrain echo Eclogue 7.4;
the carved cups recalls Eclogue 3. The name of the mourner Thyrsis points to Theocritus,
as does the device of the recurrent refrain. The theme of the mourner absent from the
deathbed of the friend recalls Castiglione’s Alcon.
119 See Dorian, English Diodatis, 177–8.
120 Ll. 12–17: “Dulcis amor Musae Thusca retinebat in urbe. / Ast ubi mens expleta
domum, pecorisque relicti / Cura vocat, simul assueta seditque sub ulmo, / Tum vero
amissum tum denique sentit amicum, / Coepit & immensum sic exonerare dolorem.”
Translations of Epitaphium Damonis are by Hughes.
121 In a still closer verbal echo – “Ite domum pasti” – Thyrsis in Virgil’s Elegy 7, line 44
sends his well-fed steers home “for shame” for intruding on their master’s song (and
perhaps on his lovemaking). In both cases the pastoral animals are well cared for.
122 See Janet Knedlick, “High Pastoral Art in Epitaphium Damonis,” Urbane Milton, ed.
Freeman and Low, 152–4.
123 See Condee, “Latin Poetry of John Milton,” 82–8.
124 Ll. 37–58, 109–11: “At mihi quid tandem fiet modo? quis mihi fidus / Haerebit lateri
comes, ut tu saepe solebas / Frigoribus duris, & per loca foeta pruinis. /... Quis fando
sopire diem, cantuque solebit? / Ite domum impasti, domino jam non vacat, agni. /
Pectora cui credam? quis me lenire docebit / Mordaces curas, quis longam fallere
noctem / Dulcibus alloquiis... / Quis mihi blanditiasque tuas, quis tum mihi risus, /
Cecropiosque sales referet, cultosque lepores? /... At jam solus agros, jam pascua
Notes to Chapter 4