No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Extract
A possible source for the opening lines of L'Allegro, apparently unnoted hitherto, is to be found in the opening lines of the last satire in John Marston's Scourge of Villanie:
- Sleep grim Reproofe, my iocond Muse doth sing
- In other keyes, to nimbler fingering.
- Dull sprighted Melancholy, leaue my braine
- To hell Cimerian night, in liuely vaine
- I striue to paint, then hence all darke intent
- And sullen frownes, come sporting meriment,
- Cheeke dimpling laughter, crowne my very soule
- With iouisance, whilst mirthfull iests controule
- The goutie humours of these pride-swolne dayes,
- Which I doe long vntill my pen displaies.
- 0 I am great with mirth, some midwifrie,
- Or I shall breake my sides at vanitie.
- Roome for a capering mouth, whose lips nere stur,
- But in discoursing of the gracefull slur:
- Who euer heard spruce skipping Curio
- Ere prate of ought, but of the whirle on toe
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1927
References
1 At least, unnoted by Masson, J. W. Good (Studies in the Milton Tradition, 1913), E. N. S. Thompson (Topical Bibliography, 1916), and J. N. Hanford (A Milton Handbook, 1926).
2 Numbered X in both editions of 1598 and 1599; numbered XI in most modern editions, because in the 1599 volume an unnumbered Satyra Nova was inserted between Satires IX and X.
3 Bodley Head Quartos XIII, 1925, p. 105.
4 Did. Nat. Biog., art. “Marston,” Vol. XII, p. 1142.