AT A SOLEMN MUSICK. BLEST pair of Syrens, pledges of Heaven's joy, Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse, Wed divine sounds, and mix'd power employ your Dead things with inbreath'd sense able to pierce; That undisturbed song of pure concent, 5 Ver. 2. Sphere-born harmonious sisters, Voice and Verse,] So, says Mr. Bowle, Marino in his Adone, c. vii. st. i. "Musica e Poesia son due sorelle." Jonson has amplified this idea, Epigr. cxxix. On E. Filmer's Musical Work, 1629. "What charming peals are these?— 66 They are the marriage-rites "Of two the choicest pair of man's delights, "Musick and Poesie : "French Air and English Verse here wedded lie," &c. See Note, L'Allegr. v. 136. See also King James's Furies, in the Invocation, to which I am directed by Mr. Malone, "Marrying so my heavenly verse "Vnto the harpe's accordes." In that king's Poeticall Exercises, Edingb. 4to. No date. Pr. by Rob. Waldegrave. T. WARTon. Ver. 6. That undisturbed song of pure concent, Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne To Him that sits thereon,] See Note on Arc. v. 61. The undisturbed Song of pure concent is the diapason of the musick of the spheres, to which, in Plato's system, God himself listens, And it is described by Plato in these words. Ἐκ πασῶν δὲ ὀκτὼ οὐσῶν ΜΙΑΝ ΑΡΜONIAN ΣΥΜΦΩΝΕΙΝ. De Republ. Aye sung before the sapphire-colour'd throne To Him that sits thereon, lib. x. p. 520. Lugd. 1590. And to this is Milton's allusion in the Paradise Lost, where the motion of the planets is described, B. v. 625. "And in their motions harmony itself "So smooths her charming tones, that God's own ear In the text, Plato's abstracted spherical harmony is ingrafted into the Song in the Revelations. T. WARTON. Ver. 6. pure concent,] It will now be perhaps unnecessary to remark, that concent, not consent, is the reading of the Cambridge manuscript. Hence Jonson, in a similar imagery, is to be corrected, in an Epithalamium on Mr. Weston, vol. vii. 2. "When look'd the year at best "So like a feast? "Or were affaires in tune, By all the sphears concent, so in the heat of June!" And perhaps Shakspeare, K. Henry V. A. i. S. 2. "For government, though high, and low, and lower, "Congruing in a full and natural close, "Like musick." Read concent. So in Lylly's Mydas, 1592, where Erato applauds Apollo's musick. A. iv. S. 1. “O divine Apollo! O sweet consent [concent]!" And in Fairfax's Tasso, c. xviii. 19. 66 “Birdes, windes, and waters sing with sweet concent.” Not consent. As in the original. "D'aure, d'acque, e d'augei dolce concento." Concent and concented occur in the Faerie Queene, i. ii. 11. iii. xii. 5. And in other places of Spenser. Content is in edit. 1645. Concent, 1673. Tonson is the first who reads consent, edit. fol. 1695. T. WARTON. Milton here alludes, I think, to the heavenly concert in Tasso, Gier. Lib. c. ix. st. 58. With saintly shout, and solemn jubilee; With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms, Singing everlastingly : That we on earth, with undiscording voice, "Al gran concento de' beati carmi "Lieta risuona la celeste reggia." TODD. Ver. 7. 10 15 the sapphire-colour'd throne] Alluding to "the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone,” Ezek. i. 26. NEWTON. Ver. 13. harps of golden wires,] So, in the celestial concert, so exquisitely described, Par. Lost, B. vii. 597. "All sounds on fret by string or golden wire "Temper'd soft tunings, intermix'd with voice 66 See also At a Vacation Exercise, v. 37. Apollo sings to the touch of golden wires." TODD. Ver. 17. That we on earth, with undiscording voice, As once we did, till disproportion'd sin Jarr'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh din To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'd In perfect diapason, whilst they stood In first obedience, and their state of good. O, may we soon again renew that song,] Perhaps there are no finer lines in Milton, less obscured by conceit, less embarrassed by affected expressions, and less weakened by pompous epithets. And, in this perspicuous and simple style, are conveyed some of the noblest ideas of a most sublime philosophy, heightened by metaphors and allusions suitable to the subject. T. WARTON. May rightly answer that melodious noise; Jarr'd against Nature's chime, and with harsh din 20 Ver. 18. May rightly answer that melodious noise ;] Noise is, in a good sense, musick. So in Ps. xlvii. 5. "God is gone up with a merry noise, and the Lord with the sound of the trump." Noise is sometimes literally synonimous for musick. As in Shakspeare, "Sneak's noise." And in Chapman's All Fools, 1605. Reed's Old Pl. vol. iv. 187. "You must get us musick too, "Call's in a cleanly noise." Compare also our author, Christ's Nativ. st. ix. v. 96. "Divinely-warbled voice, "Answering the stringed noise." And Spenser, Faer. Qu. i. xii. 39. During which time there was a heavenly noise." See more instances in Reed's Old. Pl. vol. v. 304. vi. 70. vii. 8. x. 277. And in Shakspeare, Johns. Steev. vol. v. p. 489. seq. Perhaps the Lady does not speak quite contemptuously, although modestly, in Comus, v. 227. "Such noise as I can make." Caliban seems to mean, by the context, musical sounds, when he says the "Isle is full of noises." T. WARTON. Ver. 19. till disproportion'd sin Jarr'd against Nature's chime, &c.] So, in Par. Lost, B. xi. 55. "Sin, that first "Distemper'd all things," &c. Nature's chime, is from one of Jonson's Epithalamions, vol. vii. 2. "It is the kindlie season of the time, "The month of growth, which calls all creatures forth But Milton, in this passage, seems also to allude to Gascoigne, Poems, ed. 1587, p. 296. Broke the fair musick that all creatures made. To their great Lord, whose love their motion sway'd In perfect diapason, whilst they stood In first obedience, and their state of good. O may we soon again renew that song, And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long 25 To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light! "A sweet consent of musicks sacred sound In the same straine Sylvester, Du Bart. 1621, p. 201. "The World's transform'd from what it was at first: "Their harmony distuned by his jar: "the "Yet all again concent, to make him war." Milton's friend, Henry More, adopts the same imagery, concent, the diapason, the jar," &c. in his Song of the Soul, 1642, p. 15. Milton, who loved "the concord of sweet sounds," describes the disagreement of married persons as 66 a continual grating in harsh tune together, which may breed some jar and discord," Prose-W. i. 296. TODD. Ver. 21. Broke the fair musick] To this original harmony Jonson alludes, Sad Shepherd, A. iii. S. 2. "giving to the world "Again his first and tuneful planetting." See Ode on the Nativity, st. xii. xiii. T. WARTON. |