milton's references to plato and socrates
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MILTON'S REFERENCES
TO PLATO AND
SOCRATES
By
IRENE
SAMUEL
The importance of Platonism to Milton's
growth
in
philosophi-
cal and
poetic power
has needed *further
study.
While the
sub-
ject
hitherto has not
been
neglected,
a
glance
at
the
appended
table of
references made
by
Milton
to Plato
and
Socrates
will
show how far even clear signs of his indebtedness have escaped
scholarly
notice. From these references
I have ventured to draw
some
conclusions
on the
importance
of the debt. But
first
I wish
to
thank
Dr.
Herbert
Agar
for
permission
to build
upon
the useful
discoveries
recorded in
his
book on
Milton and
Plato.
My
method
of
distinguishing
new
matter
in
the
table
is intended to acknowl.
edge fully
the debt that
I
with other scholars owe to his initial
research. The
Index to the Columbia edition
of
The
Works
of
John
Milton
appeared
after I had
compiled my
own
list of
references, but has proved a helpful check.
References to Socrates and Plato
from the
pen
of John
Milton
are,
of course,
hardly
matter for
surprise.
An
Englishman
of the
seventeenth century, trained at St.
Paul's
and
Cambridge,
at
home
in
the academies of Italy, in
correspondence with the
learned men
of his
time,
who
had
not
found occasion
to
mention Plato
and
Socrates would
astonish us. And
yet
time and
place will
not wholly
account for these references
by one who
so
constantly and reso-
lutely as Milton transcended
the mental
barriers of era and local-
ity. Again,
the mere frequency of
allusion might seem
enough to
explain why such an astute reader as Coleridge called Plato ' Mil-
ton's
darling.'
But
Coleridge's
complaint,
that
commentators have
heeded too little
Plato's influence on Milton,'
rightly suggests that
these
references
are no
less
important than
numerous. Why labor
the
point?
As
early
as his
student
years
at
Cambridge Milton was
calling Socrates
the 'wisest
of
the Greeks
2 and Plato
'divine.'
3
As late as Paradise
Regained Socrates
was still for
Milton 'the
S.
T.
Coleridge,
Letter
to W.
Sotheby,
dated
September 10,
1802, in
Letters, ed.
by Ernest
Hartley
Coleridge
(Boston, 1895),
I,
406.
' See
Eleg.
IV,
23-4.
a
Prolus.
VII.
See the
Coluimbia
edition of
The Works
of
John
Milton
(hereafter
referred to as C.
E.).
XII.
262-4.
50
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Irene Samuel 51
wisest
of them
[i.
e., the
pagans]
all' and
Plato 'the
next
'-in
wisdom, we
may guess,
as
in
time.
But
since
such
epithets
may
be
conventional,
and were
so in
Milton's
age, as often in our
own,
and often
conventional
with
those
who know little
more
of Plato than that he may,be
called
divine and
of
Socrates that he
was
called the
wisest of
men, they
need
suggest
no
unusual
Platonism in
Milton's
thought. Indeed
Milton's
early
references
to both
Socrates and
Plato are
of this
kind;
common-
places of the schools and society, they indicate learning, but rather
learning about
than
learning
from
Plato.
Milton
surely
read in
the
Dialogues at
college,
if
not
earlier,
used
materials from
them,
and knew
something
of
Platonic
'theories.' But he
read,
and
used,
and
knlew, we
may
surmise,
in
the
way of
a
highly gifted
collegian
dealing
with an
ancient
philosopher.
Plato was as
remote as
high.
The
early
references, both in
the
Cambridge
and
even
early
in
the
Horton
period, might
come from
any one
of similar
training.
They
are
vague;
4
they reveal
no
special
insight into
Plato's
thought; they have no connection with the writer's own serious
belief.
The like
may be
said even
of
the verses De
Idea
Platonica,
in
which
Aristotle's
denials are
tossed
about on
Milton's
frolicsome
Pegasus.5
So
too with 11
Penseroso, where
Plato is to be
unsphered
for
such work
as had
better
have been
left to
Hermes
Trismegis-
tus.6
These familiar
uses of
Pla.to show
interest and
learning,
even
affection, but
hardly
deep
understanding.
They
reflect
the
contemporary zest for
Platonism, but reveal
little of
AMilton.
The
allusions of
his
middle
years
are
decidedly
different.
Whether
inspired
by
the
Platonizing talk
in
the
Italian
academies
he had visited or pressed by the needs of political controversy, or
4
Note the
impossibility
of
relating
any
of
them
to a
particular
writing
of
Plato,
or
indeed
with
certainty
to
any
source
at
all.
E.
H.
Visiak
has
raised
the
question
'how
far
Mi'lton
understood
Plato's
conception when
he wrote
this
academic
exercise;
whether
he
had
.
.
.as yet
come
into
the enthusiasm
for
Plato's
philosophy
which
he
afterwards
expressed.'
See
Milton's Lament
for
Damon
and
his
other
Latin Poems
(London,
1935), p.
66.
And
another
commentator,
Walter
Mac
Kellar,
while
accepting
the
poem
as
Platonic,
feels
the
need
to
suggest
for
it
sources
other
than
Plato
and Aristotle,
See
The
Latin
Poems
of
John
Milton
(New
Haven,
1930), p.
51.
6
In 'A Note on Il Penseroso,' MLN., XXXIII (1918), 184-5, E. C.
Baldwin observed
that the
whole
passage
bears far
more
resemblance
to
the
Hermetica
than
to
any
writing
of
Plato.
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52
Miltones
References to Plato
and Socrates
whenever
and however
moved, Milton
apparently was
a
careful
student
of
the
Dialogues during the
years
of
England's
civil war.
In his
various treatises,
allusions and
citations are
specific
and
detailed, so much
so that a scholar must still
read
Plato's words
as
carefully as
Milton did
in
order to find the exact
source.7 But
even more
striking
than
this
exactness is the
manifest
wish
to
grasp
Plato's thought
and hold it
steadily in view.
The reference,
while
imbedded in
argument,
often
has
a
bit of
commentary
attached;
that is, Milton comments not merely on its relevance to the argu-
ment,
but on the
reasonableness of the
position taken
by
Plato.8
Most
important of
all,
these
citations of
Plato's
authority show
not
understanding
alone, but an
incorporation of
the thought
into Mil-
ton's own doctrine:
they
do not
simply
add
the
prop
of
a
great
name
to the
argument,
they guide
it.
And because
Milton
was
thus steadily
assimilatiing
the thoughts
of the
Dialogues
and
Epistles,
or
assimilating
his own
thoughts
to
them,
with his latest
allusions
we once more have
difficulty
in
naming the precise
origin.9
Here
again,
as in the
early references,
is vagueness, but with a difference. Now
particularity is absent
because
absorbed
in
general
understanding. Thus the
growing
infrequency
of
allusions to Plato and Socrates in
Milton's later
work
means not a
waning familiarity, but a
fully
accomplished
assimilation,
showing not
less interest
in Plato's
writings,
but a
more
perfect
appropriation
of
their
content.
7
For
example, the
passage
in
the
letter to
Buommattei,
quoted
below
on
p.
-,
is
surely
an
allusion
to
Laws, VII,
797-8;
but
Agar
writes,
'If
Milton had
any particular
passages
in
mind, they
were
perhaps
the eighth
and ninth Books of
the
Republic.'
See Herbert
Agar,
Milton
and
Plato
(Princeton,
1928),
p.
69.
Again,
Ronald
B.
Levinson
has
demonstrated
that
a
reference
in
Chzurch-Gov.
(C.
E.,
III, 264)
is to
Plato's
Sophist
230,
not,
as
Agar
says,
to
Gorgias
524-5. Cf.
Agar, p.
61,
with
Levinson,
'Milton
and
Plato,'
MLN.,
XLVI
(1931), 85-91.
One further
illustration: in
his
first
Defensio
(C.
E., VII,
158)
Milton
paraphrases
Republic, V,
463;
Agar
gives
as
the
source
Laws,
IV,
715.
8
See,
for
example,
the Preface to
Church-Gov.
(C.
E., III,
181-2)
and
the discussion below on
pp.
-.
Similarly
Milton
comments
on
Plato'a
words in a
number
of
passages,
among
them:
Church-Gov.
(C. E.,
III,
264);
D. D. D.
(C.
E.,
III,
458-9);
Tetrach.
(C.
E., IV,
655); Def.
(C.
E.,
VII,
348-50).
9 In the Logic Milton had, of course, particular reasons for taking from
Downham,
or himself
supplying,
the
name of
the
Dialogue
referred
to.
See
the
table
of
references.
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Irene
Samuel
53
So
much we
may learn
by
tabulating
these
references and
their
sources,
explicitly given
or
implied.
And
Milton's
use of
Platon-
ism, as we
hope to show in
further
papers,
confirms
this view.
Where the
early
poems
are
dotted with native
stars
and
love-inspir-
ing
beauties and spheric
harmonies, all
in
the manner
of the
Platonizing
Renaissance,
the
later
poems
incorporate
Platonic
theories
in their
argument.
And
again,
while the
works
of his
middle
vears
reveal
their debt
to
Plato
in more,
and
more
specific,
passages, the latest works are more steadily and intrinsically Pla-
tonic
in
their
theoretical
basis.
While
we cannot
precisely
date
Milton's first
reading
in the
Dialogues nor
define
its course
and effect,
something can
be said
about the
reason for
the change
we find
from the
early
references
to those of
his
middle years.
A
letter
to
Diodati,
written from
London on
September
23, 1637,
contains
Milton's earliest
'schol-
arly'
citation of
Plato:
Though
I
know
not God's
intent
toward me in
other
respects, yet of
this
I
am
sure,
that
he
has
imbued me
especially
with a
mighty
passion for
Beauty. [8ecv&6uot
apwvra,
e('rep
71
dXXCp
0V
icaXoi E'vaorae.] 10 Ceres never
sought her
daughter
Prosperine (as the
legend tells)
with
greater
ardour
than
I
do
this
Idea of
Beauty [roV KaXOI
8iaV]
1L
like
some image
of loveli-
ness;
ever
pursuing it,
by day
and by night, in
every
shape
and form
(
for
many forms
there are of
thinigs
divine ), and
following close
in
its
footprints
as
it
leads. '
And
so,
whensoever I find
one who
spurns the
base opinions
of common
men,18
and
dares
to be, in
thought and
word and
deed, that which
the
wisest
minds
throughout the
ages
have
approved;
whensoever, I
say,
I
find such a
maii, to
him I
find myself
impelled
forthwith to
cleave....
14
What am I
thinking
about?
you ask.
So help me
God, of
immortality.15
What am I
doing?
Growing
wings
[7rTepoov(Z]
and
learning to
fly;
16
but my Pegasus can only rise on tender pinions as yet, so let my new
wisdom be
humble.17
'I
Cf.
Phaedrus
249
d-e.
2'
Plato
does
not
use
this
termn,
but it is
an
obviously
Platonic
substitute
for
those he
does use
in
Phaedrus
to
express
the
concept.
12
Cf.
Phaedrus 250
a-c.
13
Cf.
ibid.
249
c-d.
14
Cf.
ibid. 251
b- 252
c,
256
d.
5 Cf.
ibid. 245
ff.
16
Cf.
ibid.
249
d-e,
251
b-
252
c,
256 d.
17
Trans. by Phyllis B. Tillyard, Milton: Private Correspondence and
Academic
Exercises
(Cambridge,
1932), p.
14.
The
insertions are
from
the
text of Milton's
letter,
C.
E.,
XII,
26.
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54 Milton's
References
to
Plato and
Socrates
Phaedrw
is
not
named;
Diodati
is
expected
to
place
the
quota-
tion.
Evidently
Milton
had
known
an Italian
Platonist
before
ever
he
entered
an
accademia.
But this
is
somehow
different
from
such
use
of
roi
xaAoi
i&e'ov
s
Ficino
or Pico
della Mirandola
or
Bembo
had
popularized.
Here
is no
mistress
praised
as the
very
incarnation
of that
glorious
idea,
but
a friend
told
that
he, but
not
he alone,
is
loved
because
this
'Idea
of Beauty'
leaves
its print
on
many
shapes
and
forms,
and
especially
on
the spirit
of an
uncom-
monly good man. The friend is even told his use: by his aid the
soul
grows
its
wings,
and to
its own
end-immortality,
that
it
may
bave
vision
of the
very
'image
of loveliness
' and
fly its
Pegasus,
if
it be
a poet's
soul,
to the
rim
of
heaven
itself-hereafter.
For
the
present
the pinions
are
but
growing;
the
flight
must
not
yet-
be,
we gather,
unaided.
We
have
in
this
letter
to
Diodati
the
authentic
note
of
ardent
Platonism.
But
was it
Milton's
first
sounding
of that
note?
In
Comus,
written some
three years
earlier,
there
occurred
a
passage
of similar
quotation
and paraphrase
from Plato. 8
And
surely
much in Comus may be traced directly or indirectly to the Dia-
logues,
and
much is
ardent.
But
is it exactly
Platonic?
We
must
reserve
for
another
time
a
discussion
of the
Platonism of
Comus,
but
may
here suggest
a way
of putting
the question:
Is
the
con-
versation of
the
mask
such a
dialogue
as
Plato might
have
written
on
the
subject?
Is the saintly
Lady
in her
awesome
self-righteous-
ness
a second
Diotima
versed
in the deep mysteries
of
Love?
No more than
Comus
with
his
bestiality
resembles
the Aristophanes
of
Plato's
creation.
The
theories
of the mask,
like its
men
and
women, are such as the Platonic Spenser loved to present, but not
Plato.
The
'divine
Philosophy'
of
Plato
had
begun
to
'charm'
Milton
long
before;
it had
not
yet
pervaded
his
thought.
Doubtless
the
youthful
writer
of Comus
did not
set himself
to
expound
Plato's
doctrines,
but,
like poets
from
Homer
to
Kipling,
simply
used
what
in
doctrine,
as in
image,
legend,
myth,
he
found
to
his
purpose.
A
great
deal of what
he found useful
came
origi-
nally
from
Plato,
some of
it
directly;
but
genuine
Platonism
like
the
words
to Diodati
we can
scarcely
call
it. The
Platonism
of
Comw
is
still
largely
conventional
because
the author,
though
I'
Lines
470-5
of
Comut
are
adapted
from
Phaedo
81.
There
are,
of
course,
many
other
reminiscences
of
the
Dialogues
in
the
mask.
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Irene Samuel
55
familiar
with the
Dialogues
and
even
partially
under their
sway,
was not
immediately concerned with
Plato. What the
letter
to
Diodati
reveals
is
not, then,
in
all
probability,
a
new
acquaintance
with
any dialogue,
but a
new
grasp
of the
relevanee
of Plato's
thought
to
Milton's own
life.
Milton
himself twice stated
that his mature reading
in
Plato
had greatly influenced
him. From these two
passages we
learn
explicitly what we have
inferred from the letter to Diodati.
Some
time before publishing his youthful Elegies in 1645, Milton
appended to them
19
a
postscript:
Haec
ego meiite
olini
laeva, studioque supino,
Nequitiae posui
vana
trophaea meae.
Scilicet abreptum sic me
malus impulit error,
Indocilisque aetas prava magistra
fuit;
Donec
Socraticos
umbrosa
Academis rivos
Praebuit, admissum
dedocuitque iugum.
Protinus, extinctis ex illo
tempore flammis
Cincta
rigent
muilto
pectora
nostra
gelu;
Uiide suis
frigus
metuit puer ipse
sagittis,
Et Diomedeam vim timet ipse Venus.20
The
lines,
somewhat like a
recantation,
have an
evident purpose.
At a definite time in
Milton's
life, we are to understand,
Plato
with his Socratic
teaching
profoundly altered the
thoughts and
feelings of
the
poet.
Once he
hadl been
content to write
in an
amorous
vein very like,
we
note, that
of conventional
Platonism;
then
upon reading,
or rather
rereading, Plato, he discovered
that
the
doctrine
of
love there
taught was
of
grave
significance, not
only
in
itself,
but
for
him.
If
this
doctrine were
simply the arm-
ing of the heart against Cupid's shafts, we might suppose that the
experience
had
preceded
and
prompted
the writing of Comus,
where
we
could
find
fully expressed the new
understanding.
But the
Apology for Smectymnuus
records
the event more
completely:
19
Or
to the
last of
them.
20
'
These
vain
trophies
of
my
idleness
I
once
set
up
in
foolish
mood
and
with
supine
endeavor.
Injurious
error,
forsooth,
led
me
astray, and untu-
tored youth
was
a
bad
teacher;
until
the
shady
Academy
offered its
Socratic
streams, and
freed me from
the
yoke
to
which
I
had
submitted.
At once
these flames were
extinguished,
and thenceforth
my
breast
has
been
stiff
with en6ircling ice, whence Cupid has feared a frost for his arrows, and
Venus fears
my
Diomedean
strength.'
The
text
and translation
are
taken
from
Mac
Kellar's edition of
Milton's
Latin
Poems.
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56 Milton's References to Plato and Socrates
Thus,
from
the
laureate
fraternity
of
poets, riper years
and the
ceaseless
round of study
and
reading led me
to
the shady spaces
of
philosophy;
but
chiefly
to
the divine
volumites
of Plato and
his equal Xenophon: where,
if I should tell you what
I
learnt
of
chastity
and
love,
I mean
that which
is
truly so, whose charming
cup is only virtue,
which
she
bears
in
her
hand
to those who are worthy; (the rest are cheated with
a
thick intoxicating
potion,
which a
certain
sorceress,
the
abuser of
love's name, carries about;)
and how the first and chiefest office of
love
begins and ends in the soul,
producing those happy twins of her divine generation, knowledge and
virtue. With such abstracted sublimities as these, it might be worth
your listening, readers, as I may one day hope to have ye in a still time,
when there
shall
be no chiding.21
Since Milton
wrote
this
passage years
after Comm
had
been per-
formed, clearly he himself did not feel that his mask told what he
had learned about chastity and love from the Dialogues. Far from
it. Those 'divine volumes' have supplied him with matter for
work yet unborn. And now, be it noted, the epithet 'divine' is
no longer merely conventional, but granted by a disciple to the
'abstracted
sublimities' into
which
he has himself
been
initiated.
For this is the language of an initiate, of one for whom the heart
of
an
ethical doctrine has come alive. Knowing that Milton had
never
since
his
student days been unacquainted with Platonism,
we
recognize this experience of
his
'riper years'
as the
winning of
a
new
insight. The letter to Diodati,
the
postscript
to
the Elegies,
the
words in
the Apology,
all bear
the
mark
of emotion,
the
two
in
prose, a strong emotion as
well
as clear understanding; they
suggest,
as it
were,
a
philosophical
conversion.
But we
need
not dwell
on
the
emotional
phase
of
Milton's
Pla-
tonism.
The
bare references
of
his
middle
years
alone warrant
our
finding in the Dialogues a major source of his theories on all the
many problems
of
human
life
witlh
which
he then
was
dealing.
Thenceforth,
at
any rate,
the
authority
of
Plato
assumed
ever-
increasing importance.
In the
letter
to
Diodati,
Milton had
quoted
from Phaedrus
without
giving
his
source;
a
year
later
he
was
more
explicit.
He
wrote
to
Buommattei:
It is
Plato's
opinion
that
an
alteration in
the
style
and
fashion
of
dress
portends grave
disorders and
changes
in the State.22
That
is Plato's
opinion
in the Laws; 23 the illustration of clothes
21
C.
E.,
III,
305.
22
Trans.
by
Tillyard,
p.
16.
23 See
Laws,
VII,
797.
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Irene
Samuel
57
is
given
only
once,
but
in
connection
with
a doctrine basic
to
the
Laws as
a
whole,
that
unnecessary
and
careless
change,
like
all
instability,
is at
once
cause
and
sign
of
decadence.
Milton,
though
it may
seem
strange
for one
who
was
to advocate divorce
and
regi-
cide,
accepted the
principle,
reapplying
it here
to
language
as
earn-
estly as Plato
had
applied
it to dress. Indeed it became
for
Milton
a constant
principle,
too little observed
by
readers of
his
tracts
on
religion,
politics, and
marriage, who
naturally
are
more
struck
by
its more striking corollary, that needed and deliberate corrections
of
evil
signify
and
produce
vitality.
Milton's
political
writings
make
frequent
use
of
various
Pla-
tonic
theories. For
example,
The Reason
of
Church-Government
opens
with the
words:
In the
publishing
of
human
laws,
which for the
most
part
aim
not
beyond
the good
of civil
society, to
set them
barely
forth
to
the
people
without
reason
or
preface, like
a
physical
prescript,
or
only
with
threaten-
ings,
as
it
were a
lordly
command,
in
the
judgment of
Plato
was thought
to
be
doneneither
generously
or wisely.24
The advice of Plato is then explained in detail and moreover con-
firmed
by
the
practice of
Moses.
A little
later
in the
Preface,
Plato
is
called
'the wisest
of the
heathen;
'
25
and
throughout the
tract
Milton
consistently
applies to
the
problems of
church-governtment
the wise
doctrine
he
had
found
repeatedly
expressed and
applied
in
Plato's Laws:
persuasion
educates;
coercion
merely
restrains.
Milton's
interest
at
the time
in
political theory
would naturally
lead
him
to
careful
study of
the two
great
political
theorists
of
antiquity.
Plato,
however,
unlike
Aristotle,
had
presented
his
politics
as
an
integrated
part not
only
of his
ethical, but of his
entire
body of
thought.
Inevitably
Milton
would
consider
works
other
than
the
Republic
and
Laws in
order to
grasp the
full
mean-
ing
of
Plato's
doctrines on
the
state.
Thus we
find in
the
Reason
of
Church-Government
allusions
to other
Platonic
dialogues,
not
primarily
political.
'I read,'
says
Milton,
of
no
sophister
among the
Greeks that
was so
dear,
neither
Hippias nor
Protagoras, nor
any whom
the
Socratic
school
famously
refuted
without
hire.26
24
Preface
to
Church-Gov.,C.
E.,
III,
181.
25
C. E., III, 182.
E6
C.
.,
III,
202;
and
see
the
table
for
other
references
in
The
Reason
of
Church-Government.
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58 Milton's References to Plato and Socrates
Milton's very use of the term 'Sophist'-and he uses it with
growing frequency and scorn in his controversial
writings-appar-
ently comes from his reading in the Dialogues, though the word
was surely in his time, as now, a commonplace. At any rate, in his
Apology for Smectymnuus, he again associates refutation of sophis-
try with the Socratic method,27 and elsewhere repeats Plato's
objection that those who deal in truth for hire cannot be true
teachers.2
From the Apology for Smectymnuus we further learn that Mil-
ton did not
always feel the aversion to 'Atlantic and Utopian poli-
ties
'
that he later expressed in Areopagitica. Here he praises
that grave and noble
invention which the
greatest
and
sublimest
wits in
sundry ages,
Plato in
Critias,
and our own two
famous
countrymen,
the
one
in his
Utopia,
the
other
in
his
New
Atlantis
chose,
I
may
not
say
as
a
field, but as
a
mighty
Continent
wherein
to
display
the
largeness
of
their
spirits by teaching
this
our world better
and exacter
things
than
were yet known, or
used.'6
Areopagitica
is
the
one
work
in which
Milton ever
disparaged any
writing of Plato; and even there Plato remains ' a man of high
authority indeed,' though
'least of all
in
his
Commonwealth,
n the
book of his
laws.'
'I
Since Milton
often used the
authority
of
that
very book to support
his
own arguments,
we
may suppose
that not
the Laws
in its entirety,
but
only its
advocation of
censorship
roused
his
dissent;
and
surely many another
Platonist has found it as
hard
to reconcile
himself
to
some of the
legal
constraints Plato
seemingly urged.
But
Milton,
be
it
noted,
ends his
discussion
of
the
censorship
in the
Laws
by commending
in its
place
another
principle from the same work:
Nor is
it Plato's licensing of books will do this [i. e., mend our
condi-
tion],
which
necessarily pulls along with it
so
many other kinds
of
licensing; .
.
. but those unwritten, or at least unconstraining laws of
virtuous education, religious and civil nurture, which Plato there men-
tions, as
the
bonds
and
ligaments
of
the commonwealth, the pillars
and the
sustainers
of
every
written
statute;
these
they be,
which
will bear
chief
sway
in
such
matters as
these.31
Plato
naturally
has a
large part
in
the treatise Of Education,
not
only among
the books to be
given
to
students,
but
in
the
theory
27
C.
E.)
III,
293-4.
2R
See,
for
example,
Pro
Se
Defensio,
C.
E., IX,
284-6.
24
C.
E., III,
294.
'0
C.
E., IV, 316.
a1
C.
E.,
IV,
318.
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Irene Samuel 59
and plan
of instruction
there set
forth.
And later
works show
how
large a part
the
Dialogues
had
in
Milton's own
self-education.
Tetrachordon
cites Plato
three
times;
the first
D'efensio
repeatedly
turns to the
Laws
and
Eighth Fpistle
for confirmation of its
politi-
cal
theorv;
and
in
the
Defensio,
nine
years
after the
Apology for
Smectymnuus,
Mlilton reasserts
his
old
judgment by
naming
Plato
among the 'best and wisest men of old' and
calling
him
once
more
'divine.'32
The Dialogues, once carefully studied, kept their hold upon
Milton.
Others have
noted
with what relative
lightness
Plato
escapes
Jesus' attack
on classical
learning
in
Paradise
Regained.
We need only add that Milton's
words
are
not
a
very serious
accu-
sation for
a
poet
to make
of
a
philosopher:
if
Plato 'fell' to 'fab-
ling
and
smooth conceits,' his fall
was
from
philosophy to poetry.
And
Milton
did
indeed think Plato poetical,
recognizing
in
him
the
'grave
and noble'
facultv
of
invention.
He
thought
Plato
a
master
of comic invention
too,33
a
master of educational theory,34
a
model
of
literary
decorum,35
an
expert in law;
38
in
short he did
most
seriously
accord
to
Plato a position
far above
any other
author,
pagan or Christian, save the authors
of Holy Scripture. Never to
Augustine,
his
favorite amolng Church-Fathers, to
Spenser, his
favorite among English
poets, to
Cicero, Erasmus, or Bacon, did
he
apply the epithet
he granted to Plato. And far
from merely
adopting a
conventional term of praise,37 Milton
showed that he
independently approved the common
judgment,
explaining that
Plato 'for those his writings hath
obtain'd the surname of Divine.'
38
We
see that
Milton
was
well
equipped by study to confirm
and
explain the ancient judgment. Note in the table of references how
often he
alludes
to
a
specific passage in Plato; note from
how wide
a
range
in
the
Dialogues
and
Epistles his allusions are
drawn, and
with
what precision
he refers to the
Laws and Epistles, the least
generally read of
Plato's works. If the references he
took from
sa
C.
E.,
VII,
350.
See
Ap.
Smect.,
C.
E.,
III,
293-4;
Tetrach.,
C.
E.,
IVy
76.
O4
f
Ed.,
C. E.,
IV,
287.
36
See
Pro
Se
Def.,
C.
E.,
IX,
176.
I
See
D.
D.
D.,
C.
E.,
III,
458.
37
At
least
as
early as
Athenaeus
he
was
6
OEcoLraros
lXarwv.
See
Deipnosophists,
x, 440b.
38
Ap.
Smect.,
C.
E.,
III,
293-4.
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60
Milton's
References to Plato
anrd Socrates
Downham's
commentary on
Rlamus should not be counted as
Mil-
ton's own, the
choice at
least
is his,
since he omitted innumerable
others
in
condensing
Downham's work.
And two
changes
he made
in
Downham's
citations are
clear proof
that
what he took
unchanged,
he
took with full
knowledge
of the
works
alluded to.
Once, where
Downham
had
omitted the
specific
source, Milton
supplied
Phae-
drus;
'
and
again,
to
Downham's
illustrative
phrase, 'philosophus
pro
Aristotle,' Milton
significantly
added 'aut
Platone.' 40
From the two amendments we may learn, first, Milton's ability
independently to
supply the
precise
dialogue of
Plato when his
source failed
to name
it,
and
further
his
unwillingness
to
have
the
term
'the
philosopher'
stand, even
in
one short
phrase,
for
any
other
alone
without
mention of Plato.
Briefly,
both amendments
confirm
Milton's
thorough
knowledge of and enthusiastic admira-
tion for
Plato's work.
What
that
knowledge
and enthusiasm meant
in his own
thought and
writing we have
as
yet hardly
begun
to
probe. For
put
Paradise
Lost and Paradise
Regained
to the same
test
as
we
put Comus
earlier,
and
we
get
a
startlingly
different
result. Suppose Plato dealing with the loss of human happiness,
would he
give the same
explanation as
Milton in
the
tale of man's
fall?
On the
whole,
we may
say yes.
True,
he would
conceive
of
no
such perfect
providence
watching-and
waiting to relieve-
mankind's errors.
And
Plato, to be
sure,
never tarried
so
long
in
Hell
as Milton.
Doubtless the
Hebraic view
of life
brings to
its
disciples greater
struggles as
well
as greater
aspirations
than
Hlel-
lenism
at its best.
But
if
we
look
aside from
Hell and
Heaven to
Earth,
where
Milton after all
wished
us to
fix
our
gaze
most
steadily,
and discern in the struggle there ensuing the meaning as Milton
discerned it, we
can
see
that, however
little the
words and
acts
resemble
those of
a Platonic
dialogue,
the
underlying
argument is
largely
Plato's. And
when we
turn to
Paradise
Regained,
where a
bolder
Sophist than any
opponent
of
Socrates defies
a more
glorious
seeker
after
truth,
even if the
very
dialectical
method of
Jesus'
victory did
not
point to the
Dialogues as a
model, the
themes and
arguments
are, we
conceive,
very
nearly what
Plato would
have
written
had
he-as in
the
nature of
things he
could not
have-
treated
a
like
subject.
ao
See
in the
appended
table
the note
to the
reference
Logic, C.
E.,
XI,
*22.
4
See
the
note to
Logic,
C.
E., XI,
**334.
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Irene
Samuel
61
We
can see
and
we
conceive-but
only
after careful
comparison
of Milton's
thought
with
Plato's;
and while the
reader awaits
that
comparison,
he may grant
the
need of
it from the
number
and
variety
of
Milton's references.
A
TABLE
OF MILTON'S
REFERENCES
TO
SOCRATES
AND
PLATO
Passage
Date
Source Quoted
S
Eleg.
4.
23-4
1627 ?t
Aloib., 103 ff.,
135
Agar 15
P
Idea Plat. 1628
passim; esp.
?Phaedo, Agar
16
or
later ?Phaedr.,
?Sym.,
?Rep.
P
Prolus.
2, C.
E.
12. 150
1625-9 ?Rep. 10. 616-7
Agar
76
Prolus.
6, C. E. 12
1625-9
S
*218
?Apol. 20-3
S
*238
passim
Prolus. 7, C. E. 12
1625-9
P
262-4
Agar 77
S
*280
passim
P
II Pen. 87-96
1631-4
?Tim.
41-2
Agar
5
1
The
symbols
used
in
the table
are as
follows:
S
and
P
indicate references
to
Socrates
and
Plato. Parentheses
are
used
to
distinguish
implicit
references,
as
in
the
letter to
Diodati,
where
Milton
quotes
Phaedrus, but
does not
name
his
source.
The
single
asterisk marks
a
reference
not
given
in
Agar's
Milton
and
Plato.
The
double
asterisk
marks a
reference given
neither
in
the Columbia
Index nor
by
Agar.
.0.
B.
with
Arabic
numbers
following
refers to the
Columbia
edition
of
The Works
of
John
Milton,
volume
and
page. The
numbers
in
parentheses
correspond to
Milton's own
divisions.
A question nmark before a title indicates uncertainty in assigning the
allusion
to
any specific
work
of
Plato.
The
number after
Agar
refers
to
the
passage in the
Appendix
of Agar's
volume where
the selection is
quoted.
The
page-number
after Downham
marks
the
place in
the
work of
George
Downham,
Rami
Dialecticae Libri
D1uo
cum Comm
entariis
(London,
1669),
which
is the
source of
Milton's
reference.
Milton,
of
course,
used an
earlier
edition
of
Downham's
commentary.
The list
does
not
include those
passages in
the
Logic where
Socrates is
named
merely
as
a
convenient
Everyman
of
argument.
2
The most
likely
source is
Diogenes
Laertius,
Life of
Socrates,
36-8.
See
also
Xenophon's
Banquet
2.
10.
Diogenes
Laertius seems
to take
the
statement of the oracle
from
Plato's
Apology
and
the
character
of
Xanthippe
from
Xenophon.
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62
Milton's
References
to Plato
and
Socrates
Passage
Date Source
Quoted
[P]
To
Dio.,
C. E. 12. 26 1637 Phaedr.
Agar
72
P To Buom.,
C. E.
12. 32 1638 Laws 7. 797-8 Agar 73
P
Of Ref., C.
E. 3. 39 1641
?Rep., esp.
4.
420; Agar
53
?Laws, esp.
5. 739
S
*Animad.,
C. E. 3. 161 1641
(Xenophon)3
Church-Gov.,
C.
E. 3 1642
P *181-2 (Preface)
Laws 4. 718 ff.
S
*202
(1. 5) passim; esp. Protag., ?Hipp.
Jfin.
P 264 (2. 3) Soph. 230; '?Gorg.476ff. Agar 54
Ap. Smect.,
C. E. 3 1642
PS 293-4
passim
Agar
55
P
*294 Critias
P
305
passim;
esp.
Phaedr., Sym.
Agar 57
D. D.
D., C. E.
3. 1643
PS 398 (1.4)
Sym. 203
Agar 58
P
441 (2.3)
passim; esp. Thaws 1. 644-5;
WMenro
9-100
Agar
60
P
*458-9 (2.9)
Laws
4. 719
P
464 (2.11)
Protag. 354 e, 355-8; et al. Agar 61
Cf.
Memo 77-8,
Tim. 86
SP 500-1 (2.21) Gorg. 482-4, 488-510 Agar 62
Judg. Bucer,
C. E. 4 1644
P
*24 (17 on Matth. v. 19)
(Bucer)
5
?Rep.,
?Laws
Areop., C. E. 4. 1644
P
299
Agar
44
P 316
Rep., Laws
Agar 46
p
317
Rep. 3; Laws 2, 7 Agar
47
P 318
Rep. 4; Laws 1, 7 Agar
48
Of Ed., C. E. 4 1644
S
281
Agar 66
P
284
passim
Agar 67
P 286 passim; esp. Phaedr., Gorg. Agar 68
P
287
passim and Laws 1. 634-5 Agar 69
[PIS
Eleg. 7, Postscript before
passim; esp. Phaedr.,
Sym.
1645
Tetrach., C. E. 4 1645
s This is the sole reference to Socrates in which Milton uses
Xenophon
alone as the authority. See Xenophon, Apology, 26; Memorabilia I.
2.
1-8; I. 6.
11-3.
'
The first part of the reference comes from Diogenes Laertius, Life
of
Plato, 18; the second from Milton's own reading of the Dialogues.
'That
detractor in Athenaeus ' is probably Pontianus in Deipnosophists II. 504 b-
509
e.
IApparently taken from Martin Bucer, Of the Kingdom of
Christ,
Chap. 17.
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Irene Samuel
63
Passage
Date
Source
Quoted
S *70
(To Parl.)
?Apol.
19
P
*76
(on
Gen. i.
27)
Sym.
189-93
P
81
(on
Gen.
i.
28)
Laws
6.
773-6,
783-5
Agar
63
P
*157-8 (on
Matth.
xix.
7-8) Rep.
Def.,
C.
E. 7.
1651
P 158 (3)
Rep.
5. 463.
Cf. Laws
4.
715
P
166-8 (3)
Laws
4.715; VIIIEpist.354
Agar
40
P 304-6 (5)
VIII Epist.
355
Agar
41
P
*348-50 (6)
VIII
Epist.
354-5
S Def. Sec., C. E. 8.192 1654 ?A.pol. 20-3
Pro Se Def.,
C. E. 9.
1655
S
*52
?Apol.
S[P]
*112
passim
PS *176
passim
p
*180-2
P P. L. 3. 471-3
before
Agar
18
1667
Grammar,C.
E. 6
1669
P
**329 (2. Of the
Con-
cords)
SP *1349 (2. of the Con-
junctions)
Logic, C. E.
11.
1670
Downham.
P
*10 (Preface)
Theaet.
202 e Proleg., p. 19
P
**12 (Preface)
Gorg.
448
Proleg.,
p. 22
P
*18-20 (1.1)
Crat., IAlcib.
129
c pp.
3-4
P
*22 (1. 2)
Phaedr.
235-6, 264
p. 15
5
PS *58
(1.
7)
passim
(and Diogenes
p. 79
Laertius)
P
*66
(1. 8)
Phil.
54
p.88
P
*96
(1.11)
Rep. 3. 405
7
p.122
S
[PI
*140-2
(1. 16)
Crito
44
p. 164
P *150 (1. 18) p. 177
Milton
gives
the source
as Phaedrus
where
Downham
had
simply said,
'Atque
hanc
distributionem
]Plato
videtur
primus
attigisse.'
7
Milton's
translator
in the
Columbia
edition, Allan H.
Gilbert, makes
a
serious
mistake
here. Quoting
Downham,
Milton
writes:
'Hoc
argu-
mento
Plato
miseras
civitates
auguratur,
quae
medicorum et
judicum
multitudine
indigeant,
quia
multum
quoque et
intemperantiam
et injusti-
tiam
in ea
civitate versari
necesse
est.' The
translation
given
is:
'
By
means of this
argument
Plato
conjectures that
those
states are
wretched
which lack a
multitude
of
physicians
and
judges, since
necessarily
much
intemperance and injustice will be practised in such a state. ' Clearly
Plato
says the
very opposite
in
the Republic
3. 405,
and
Milton's
'
multi-
tudine
indigeant' must mean
'are
poor
with their
multitude.'
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7/23/2019 Milton's References to Plato and Socrates
16/16
64
Milton's
References to
Plato
and Socrates
Passage Date
Source
Quoted
S
*166 (1.18)
P *200 (1. 21) Laws
3,
Phaedo 92
p.209
S
204
(1.21)
p. 212
S *228
(1. 25)
(Aristotle) p. 242
P
*228-30 (1. 25)
?Phil.
16-8, pp.
243-4
?Statesm. 287
S
238 (1. 27)
passim
and Meno 72-7 pp.
249-50
P
*240
(1.27)
Statesm.
p.251
P
#286 (1.33)
Rep. 5. 473 p.290
P *308 (2.3) Crat. ?431 p.324
P ?*334 (2.4)
p.365
P
*470 (2.17)
Phil.
16 p.472
P 474 (2.17) ?Phaedr.,
?Statesm.
p.428
P **494 (Praxis)
?Tim.
p. 47
P.R.
1671
S
3.
96-9
passim; esp. ?Apol.
29-
Agar
35
31,
36-42; ?Crito,
?Phaedo
P 4. 244-7
Agar
37
S
[P]
*4. 272-8 ?Apol.
20-3
BP 4. 293-5 passim Agar 38
?On Worthy Master t
Shakespeare, C.
E. 18. 361
P **15-8
Tim.
39
@
Downham
had
written,
'ut Poeta
pro Homero aut Virgilio:
philoso-
phus pro Aristotele: orator pro Demosthene aut Cicerone.' Milton inserts
Plato as
one
for whom philosophus
may stand:
'ut
poets pro
Homero
aut Virgilio,
Philosophus
pro Aristotele
aut Platone et similia.'