[continued from previous message]
And if the late King had thought sufficient those Answers and Defences made for him in his life time, they who on the other side accus'd his evil Goverment, judging that on their behalf anough also hath been reply'd, the heat of this controversie was
in all likelyhood drawing to an end; and the furder mention of his deeds, not so much unfortunat as faulty, had in tenderness to his late sufferings bin willingly forborn; and perhaps for the present age might have slept with him unrepeated; while his
adversaries, calm'd and asswag'd with the success of thir cause, had bin the less unfavourable to his memory. But since he himself, making new appeale to Truth and the World, hath left behind him this Book as the best advocat and interpreter of his own
actions, and that his Friends by publishing, dispersing, commending, and almost adoring it, seem to place therein the chiefe strength and nerves of thir cause, it would argue doubtless in the other party great deficience and distrust of themselves, not
to meet the force of his reason in any field whatsoever, the force and equipage of whose Armes they have so oft'n met victoriously. And he who at the Barr stood excepting against the form and manner of his Judicature, and complain'd that he was not heard;
neither he nor his Friends shall have that cause now to find fault; being mett and debated with in this op'n and monumental Court of his own erecting; and not onely heard uttering his whole mind at large, but answer'd. Which to doe effectually, if it be
necessary that to his Book nothing the more respect be had for being his, they of his own Party can have no just reason to exclaime. For it were too unreasonable that he, because dead, should have the liberty in his Book to speak all evil of the
Parlament; and they, because living, should be expected to have less freedom, or any for them, to speak home the plain truth of a full and pertinent reply. As he, to acquitt himself, hath not spar'd his Adversaries, to load them with all sorts of blame
and accusation, so to him, as in his Book alive, there will be us'd no more Courtship then he uses; but what is properly his own guilt, not imputed any more to his evil Counsellors, (a Ceremony us'd longer by the Parlament then he himself desir'd) shall
be laid heer without circumlocutions at his own dore. That they who from the first beginning, or but now of late, by what unhappines I know not, are so much affatuated, not with his person onely, but with his palpable faults, and dote upon his
deformities, may have none to blame but thir own folly, if they live and dye in such a strook'n blindness, as next to that of Sodom hath not happ'nd to any sort of men more gross, or more misleading. Yet neither let his enemies expect to finde recorded
heer all that hath been whisper'd in the Court, or alleg'd op'nly of the Kings bad actions; it being the proper scope of this work in hand, not to ripp up and relate the misdoings of his whole life, but to answer only and refute the missayings of his
book.
First then that som men (whether this were by him intended, or by his Friends) have by policy accomplish'd after death that revenge upon thir Enemies, which in life they were not able, hath been oft related. And among other examples we finde, that the
last will of Cæsar being read to the people, and what bounteous Legacies he had bequeath'd them, wrought more in that Vulgar audience to the avenging of his death, then all the art he could ever use, to win thir favor in his life-time. And how much
their intent, who publish'd these overlate Apologies and Meditations of the dead King, drives to the same end of stirring up the people to bring him that honour, that affection, and by consequence, that revenge to his dead Corps, which he himself living
could never gain to his Person, it appears both by the conceited portraiture before his Book, drawn out to the full measure of a Masking Scene, and sett there to catch fools and silly gazers; and by those Latin words after the end, Vota dabunt quæ Bella
negarunt; intimating, That what he could not compass by Warr, he should atchieve by his Meditations. For in words which admitt of various sense, the libertie is ours to choose that interpretation, which may best minde us of what our restless enemies
endeavor, and what wee are timely to prevent. And heer may be well observ'd the loose and negligent curiosity of those who took upon them to adorn the setting out of this Book: for though the Picture sett in Front would Martyr him and Saint him to befool
the people, yet the Latin Motto in the end, which they understand not, leaves him, as it were, a politic contriver to bring about that interest by faire and plausible words, which the force of Armes deny'd him. But quaint Emblems and devices, begg'd from
the old Pageantry of some Twelf-nights entertainment at Whitehall, will doe but ill to make a Saint or Martyr: and if the People resolve to take him Sainted at the rate of such a Canonizing, I shall suspect thir Calendar more then the Gregorian. In one
thing I must commend his op'nness who gave the title to this Book, Εικων Βασιλικη, that is to say, The Kings Image; and by the SHRINE he dresses out for him, certainly would have the people come and worship him. For which reason this answer
also is intitl'd, Iconoclastes, the famous Surname of many Greek Emperors, who in thir zeal to the command of God, after long tradition of Idolatry in the Church, took courage and broke all superstitious Images to peeces. But the People, exorbitant and
excessive in all thir motions, are prone ofttimes not to a religious onely, but to a civil kinde of Idolatry, in idolizing thir Kings; though never more mistak'n in the object of thir worship; heretofore being wont to repute for Saints, those faithful
and courageous Barons, who lost thir lives in the Field, making glorious Warr against Tyrants for the common Liberty; as Simon de Momfort, Earl of Leicester, against Henry the third; Thomas Plantagenet Earl of Lancaster, against Edward the second. But
now, with a besotted and degenerate baseness of spirit, except some few, who yet retain in them the old English fortitude and love of Freedom, and have testifi'd it by thir matchless deeds, the rest, imbastardiz'd from the ancient nobleness of thir
Ancestors, are ready to fall flatt and give adoration to the Image and Memory of this Man, who hath offer'd at more cunning fetches to undermine our Liberties, and putt Tyranny into an Art, then any British King before him. Which low dejection and
debasement of mind in the people, I must confess I cannot willingly ascribe to the natural disposition of an English-man, but rather to two other causes. First, to the Prelats and thir fellow-teachers, though of another Name and Sect, whose Pulpit-stuff,
both first and last, hath bin the Doctrin and perpetual infusion of servility and wretchedness to all thir hearers; whose lives the type of worldliness and hypocrisie, without the least true pattern of vertue, righteousness, or self-denial in thir whole
practice. I attribute it next to the factious inclination of most men divided from the public by several ends and humors of thir own. (...)
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I sing the starry axis and the singing hosts in the sky, *and of the
gods suddenly destroyed in their own SHRINES*. -- Milton, 1629
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Shrine \Shrine\, v. t.
To enshrine; to place reverently, as in a shrine. ``Shrined
in his sanctuary.'' --Milton.
Shrine \Shrine\ (shr[imac]n), n. [OE. schrin, AS. scr[=i]n, from
L. scrinium a case, chest, box.]
1. A case, box, or receptacle, especially one in which are
deposited sacred relics, as the bones of a saint.
2. Any sacred place, as an altar, tomb, or the like.
Too weak the sacred shrine guard. --Byron.
3. A place or object hallowed from its history or
associations; as, a shrine of art.
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Milton
On Shakespeare. 1630
WHat needs my Shakespear for his HONOUR'D BONES,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his HALLOW'D RELIQUES should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing PYRAMID?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame, [ 5 ]
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th' shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart [ 10 ]
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book,
Those DELPHICK lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us MARBLE with too much conceaving;
And so Sepulcher'd in such POMP dost lie, [ 15 ]
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.
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APOLLO from his SHRINE/ Can no more divine,/
With hollow shreik the steep of DELPHOS leaving. - Milton
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Performing early modern trauma from Shakespeare to Milton
By Thomas Page Anderson
In the "Preface" to Eikonoklastes, Milton establishes his strategy to
disarm the book in a disingenuous offer of praise. He "commends" the
King's "op'ness" in giving the title of The King's Image to the book.
And he complements as well the appearance of the project: "by the
SHRINE he dresses out for him, certainly would have the people come
and worship him" (EK, p.68). Milton's reference to the shrine echoes
Protestant writings that worked to debunk notions of the sacred altar
central to the Catholic sacraments. By acknowledging the altar-like
status of the text, Milton associates the book's appeal to its
putative efficacy. However, he qualifies the king's SHRINE by
suggesting that its altar-like status is the product of effective
staging or "dress[ing] out."
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John Milton's "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity" (1629)
...The Oracles are dumm,
No voice or hideous humm
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. [ 175 ]
APOLLO from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shreik the steep of DELPHOS leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathed spell,
Inspire's the pale-ey'd Priest from the prophetic cell. [ 180 ]
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Milton, Paradise Regained
451: The other service was thy chosen task,
452: To be a liar in four hundred mouths;
453: For lying is thy sustenance, thy food.
454: Yet thou pretend'st to truth! all oracles
455: By thee are given, and what confessed more true
456: Among the nations? That hath been thy craft,
457: By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies.
458: But what have been thy answers? what but dark,
459: Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding,
460: Which they who asked have seldom understood,
461: And, not well understood, as good not known?
462: Who ever, by consulting at thy shrine,
463: Returned the wiser, or the more instruct
464: To fly or follow what concerned him most,
465: And run not sooner to his fatal snare?
466: For God hath justly given the nations up
467: To thy delusions; justly, since they fell
468: Idolatrous. But, when his purpose is
469: Among them to declare his providence,
470: To thee not known, whence hast thou then thy truth,
471: But from him, or his Angels president
472: In every province, who, themselves disdaining
473: To approach thy temples, give thee in command
474: What, to the smallest tittle, thou shalt say
475: To thy adorers? Thou, with trembling fear,
476: Or like a fawning parasite, obey'st;
477: Then to thyself ascrib'st the truth foretold.
478: But this thy glory shall be soon retrenched;
479: No more shalt thou by oracling abuse
481: And thou no more with POMP and sacrifice
482: Shalt be enquired at DELPHOS or elsewhere--
483: At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute.
484: God hath now sent his living Oracle
485: Into the world to teach his final will,
486: And sends his Spirit of Truth henceforth to dwell
487: In pious hearts, an inward oracle
488: To all truth requisite for men to know."
489:
490: So spake our Saviour;
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Milton, On Shakespeare
And so sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die..
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