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Milton's Annotations of Aratus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Maurice Kelley  and
Samuel D. Atkins
Maurice Kelley
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, N. J.
Samuel D. Atkins
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, N. J.
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Extract

Since 1921, professors hanford, mohl, and others have told us much about the chronology and scope of Milton's reading in history and related subjects; but as yet we lack similarly detailed information regarding the time and nature of Milton's private studies in Greek and Roman literature. For at least a partial knowledge, however, of when and how Milton studied the Classics, source materials exist in annotations found in four of Milton's Greek texts: his Pindar, purchased in 1629, his Aratus, purchased in 1631, and his Lycophron and Euripides, both purchased in 1634. Here—and for the most part in his own hand—Milton has left us evidence of some of his Classical studies during his latter years at Cambridge and his later life; and an analysis of these annotations should supply us with information regarding Milton's intellectual history that we have hitherto lacked.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 70 , Issue 5 , December 1955 , pp. 1090 - 1106
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1955

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References

page 1090 note 1 Two of Milton's Greek prose texts have also survived, but they show only minor annotation. His copy of Heraclidis Pontici… Allegoriae, which he purchased in 1637, is in the Univ. of Illinois Library; and the underscoring, pen strokes, and textual corrections found in it are carefully described by Harris Fletcher in JEGP, xlvii (1948), 182–187. Milton's copy of Dionis Chrysostomi Oraliones LXXX, purchased in 1636, is in the Chapter Library of Ely Cathedral. In this volume, the annotations are limited to a fly leaf inscription and 4 or 5 brief corrections of the text.

page 1090 note 2 C. L. Prince, A Literal Translation of the Astronomy and Meteorology of Aratus (Lewes, 1895), pp. 5–6, lists 4 quarto eds. published at Paris in 1559, 2 of which were printed by Morel. J. T. Buhle, Arati Solensis Phaenomena et Diosemea Graece et Latine, i (Leipzig, 1793), xx, mentions 3 quarto eds. by Morel.

page 1090 note 3 For details concerning the provenance of the volume, see the notations in the volume itself; Bibliotheca Eeberiana, Part VI (London, 1835), Lot 171; The Athenaeum, No. 1160 (19 Jan. 1850), p. 76; N&Q, 2nd Ser., iv (1857), 459–460; Samuel Leigh Sotheby, Ramblings in the Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton (London, 1861), p. 105; The Works of John Milton (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1938), xviii, 568–569 (referred to hereafter as Columbia). Facsimiles of some of the annotations appear in John Mitford, The Works of John Milton (London, 1851), i, Frontispiece; Sotheby, Plate xiv, facing p. 98; F. G. Netherclift, The Handbook of Autographs (London, 1862), s.v. Milton. For notices and discussions, see Mitford, i, cxxx, clxxxi–clxxxii; Alfred Stern, Milton und seine Zeit (Leipzig, 1877), i, ii, 480–481; David Masson, The Life of John Milton (London, 1881), i, 268; The Archivist, vi (1893), 58; J. E. Sandys, A History of Classical Scholarship (Cambridge, 1908), ii, 347–348; ELH, rv (1937), 320; J. Milton French, The Life Records of John Milton (New Brunswick, N. J., 1949), i, 225.

page 1090 note 4 Mitford, i, clxxxi-clxxxii; Sotheby, p. 105; Columbia, xviii, 325–327. Of these 3, only Mitford's list seems to have aimed at completeness, and its transcriptions are often inaccurate; Sotheby was offering only a selection of entries that would illustrate Milton's autograph; while Columbia printed only marginalia that “involved original composition by Milton.”

page 1090 note 5 See Columbia, xviii, 569: “Of the notes collected by us, Mitford published all save Nos. 1, 7, and the last five words of No. 4 (both additions in the hand of a Miltonic amanuensis).” This statement is not entirely clear; but we have taken it to refer to the Columbia entries numbered 7 and 4, which in our list appear as entries 10 and 7, with the last 5 words of Columbia 4 constituting our 7b.

page 1090 note 6 In our list, we have numbered the entries according to the order in which they appear in Milton's book. The supralinear letters MSC, following the entry numbers, indicate the earlier lists—Mitford, Sotheby, Columbia—that have accepted the annotation as Milton's. Within the parenthesis, the two numbers to the left of the semicolon indicate the page and our supplied line number in the poetical text of Milton's Morel edition, while the number to the right of the semicolon indicates the consecutive line number found in the modern eds. of Ernestus Maass (Arali Phaenomena, Berlin, 1893) and G. R. Mair (in Cattimachus and Lycophron, Aratus, London: Loeb Classical Library, 1921). The Greek to the left of the square bracket is the reading of the Morel text, which Milton annotated; the English to the right is our description of the entry, the Latin and Greek our transcription of Milton's note.

page 1090 note 7 C (xviii, 569) seems to indicate, mistakenly, that another entry on this page, “Draco”, is also of Miltonic origin. This entry, however, is clearly by Upton, as other Upton entries, “pytho Serpens” (p. 10), “Corona” (p. 11), and “Ophiucus” (p. 12), definitely show.

page 1090 note 8 C seems, mistakenly, to assign this entry to a Milton amanuensis. Milton himself clearly wrote the entry, probably in the period 1641–42.

page 1090 note 9 Here, as in entry 7b, C mistakenly assigns a Milton autograph entry to an amanuensis.

page 1090 note 10 The marginal correction is obscured by deletion, and the caret and the single inserted letter in the printed text offer scant evidence for attribution. We assign the entry to Milton, however, because of its similarity to entries 7b and 31, the similar use of the caret in entries 29 and 31, and Milton's same correction of another form of this word in entry 28.

page 1090 note 11 We assign this entry to Milton because its handwriting differs from that of Upton, as displayed in his oιóς oι (p. 17) and does resemble that found in Milton's entries 20 and 21. The peculiar form of circumflex accent, furthermore, appears frequently in Milton's Lyco-phron marginalia (for instance, on pp. 21,28,45,46, 58).

page 1090 note 12 ήελὰῳ, written just below entry 19, we assign to Upton because the handwriting of this word shows his characteristic inability to maintain an even base line for his letters, and because the form of the ε is very like that appearing on the same page in Upton's oύκ ετι.

page 1090 note 13 We assign this entry to Milton because it resembles entries 29 and 30.

page 1090 note 14 In comparison with the other Aratus notes, the Group C entries have proved refractory. As ns. 10, 11, and 13 indicate, they are less obviously Milton's than the other entries; and as we have just indicated, their probable place in the chronology of Milton's study of Aratus is likewise less certain. If we are mistaken either in attributing them to Milton or in assigning them to Period II, our error is not significantly serious, for nothing in the three entries contradicts the general conclusions of this article.

page 1090 note 15 Helen Darbishire, The Early Lives of Milton (London, 1932), p. 12 and plate opposite.

page 1090 note 16 Columbia, iv, 284.

page 1090 note 17 Callimachus and Lycophron, Aratus (London: Loeb Classical Library, 1921), p. 401.

page 1090 note 18 Ernestus Maass, Commentariorvm in Aralvm Reliquiae (Berlin, 1898), p. 391.

page 1090 note 19 In this volume, the text of Aratus appears on ff. 203v–238v. It lacks line numbers and is printed in such small type that it is often, particularly where accents are concerned, illegible even under a reading glass.

page 1090 note 20 In only 1 of these 6 instances, entry 13, could Milton have derived his note from the de Gabiano ed., which we know he used during Period I. In the other S instances, the de Gabiano ed. agrees with the Morel text, which Milton was correcting.

page 1090 note 21 Columbia, iv, 306.

page 1090 note 22 Henry J. Todd (The Poetical Works of John Milton, London, 1842, ii, 436) seems first to have associated Aratus with Milton's lines. Earlier, as Todd notes, Newton had attributed them to the influence of Vergil; but the presence of Milton's annotation in the Greek passage would seem to corroborate Todd.

page 1090 note 23 These 2 Period II entries, 12 and 21, concern words corrected in other forms in the Period I entries 28 and 13. This fact might indicate that all 4 entries belong to one and the same period; but the evidence of the handwriting does not support this conclusion, and we have therefore assigned them as the handwriting seemed to dictate.

page 1090 note 24 i, 399.

page 1090 note 25 P. 4, Col. 2 in “Hvgeiani Grotii Notae ad Phaenomena Arati.” In this volume, the pages are not numbered consecutively, but rather by sections; and the textual notes contain no line numbers.

page 1090 note 26 Darbishire, p. 60.

page 1090 note 27 Here we treat entries 7a and 7b as one because they both concern one textual problem.

page 1090 note 28 Buhle agrees with both Maass and Mair in entries 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, 22,23, 24, 29,34; with Mair in entries 19, 28, 36; with neither Maass nor Mair in entries 9, 13, 21, 30, 31.