“Studious Retirement” 1632–1638In 1637 there were several plague deaths in Horton, and in that year also Milton
had to confront the harsh facts of human mortality in more personal terms. His
mother Sara died in April and was buried three days later at the top of the center aisle
in the chancel of Horton church, under a plain blue stone inscribed, “Heare Lyeth
the Body of Sara Milton the Wife of John Milton Who Died the 3rd of April, 1637.”^63
The placement testifies to the family’s prominence. On August 17 Ben Jonson was
buried in Westminster Abbey, marking what must have seemed to Milton the end of
a literary era. Soon after, Milton would have heard about the death on August 10 of
his college associate Edward King, whose ship hit a rock and foundered off the coast
of Cornwall as he was en route to Ireland to visit his family. A memorial volume was
planned at Cambridge and Milton was asked, or volunteered, to contribute to it.
Late in 1637 or early in 1638 Lawes published the text of A Maske.^64 In his
dedication to Lord Brackley, who had played the Elder Brother, Lawes explains
that he decided to publish the work because, “Although not openly acknowledg’d
by the Author, yet it is a legitimate off-spring, so lovely, and so much desired, that
the often copying of it hath tir’d my pen to give my severall friends satisfaction.”^65
This suggests that Lawes had already presented fair copies of the acting version to
Bridgewater and several others.^66 But Milton evidently did not want to have the
acting version published, with its cuts, its changed opening, and its redistribution of
parts; he used instead the version in the Trinity manuscript, but with several addi-
tions and changes. His reason for remaining anonymous is hinted at in the epigraph
on the title page from Virgil’s Second Eclogue: “Eheu quid volui misero mihi!
floribus austrum Perditus” (Alas what wish, poor wretch, has been mine? I have let
in the south wind to my flowers). This may be the stance of a gentleman fastidious
about avoiding public display, but it more obviously points to a young artist anx-
ious about his first foray into the public arena, and perhaps uneasy about readers’
responses to a work that defies expectations, generic and cultural.^67 Protected by
anonymity, Milton revised and augmented his text for publication, assuming a pub-
lic poet’s responsibility to teach and please a larger audience.
Probably in late autumn, 1637, he added two substantial passages to the Trinity
manuscript text: an expanded epilogue, and a long speech by the Lady extolling
Chastity and Virginity, followed by Comus’s awestruck testimony to that power in
her. The terms glorify the doctrine and mystery of virginity:
to him that dares
Arme his profane tongue with reproachfull words
Against the Sun-clad power of Chastitie
Faine would I something say, yet to what end?
Thou hast nor Eare, nor Soule to apprehend
The sublime notion, and high mysterie
That must be utter’d to unfold the sage
And serious doctrine of Virginitie.^68