Areopagitica: title of Milton's Areopagitica alludes to
both the Areopagiticus of Isocrates and the story of St. Paul in Athens from Acts 17: 18-34
par 1: states: Heads of state, either rulers or assemblies
par 1: wanting: Lacking, not having
par 1: successe: Outcome, result
par 1: at other times:
most likely referring to the revised edition of Doctrine
and Discipline of Divorce (1644) and The Judgement of
Martin Bucer (1644)
par 1: blameless, if it: it. "which of them sway'd most." If the passion Milton
feels most in the moment of writing this speech is "the joy
and gratulation" of those who "wish and promote their
Countries liberty," then he is in an appropriate mood.
par 1: gratulation which it: it. The antecedent of this "it" appears to be "the very
attempt" of making an address to a governing body like
Parliament.
par 2: beyond the manhood of a Roman recovery: some discipline of virtue more manly even than that
typical of Roman heroes must be put into practice
par 2: first: the first time Milton praises
Parliament in this discourse
par 3: rescuing the employment from him: taking the
business of praising Parliament out of the hands of a
flatterer and into Milton's hands. The flatterer he refers
to is Jospeph Hall, Bishop of Norwich (1574-1656)
par 3: ecomium: A formal or high-flown expression of praise; a
eulogy, panegyric (OED2). Malignant was a term used by
Parliamentarians to describe anything opposed to them
during Milton's time
par 4: one of your publisht Orders: the Parliamentary Order
restoring the powers of press licensing to the State
par 4: equall: Fair, equitable, just, impartial
par 4: trienniall Parlament: (February 16, 1641) stipulated the automatic issue of writs
a new Parliament if the king failed to summon one within 3 years
par 4: cabin Counsellours: "personal rule" when Charles I ruled without Parliaments
between 1629 and 1640
par 5: Parlament of Athens: Milton chooses to flatter the
British Parliament by comparing it to the governing body
of the culture for which he has the greatest admiration,
that of ancient Athens
par 5: Siniories: 'seigniors' or lords. Often with
reference to Italy
par 5: Dion Prusæus: (died about 112 CE). A rhetorician
and philosopher, his "Rhodian Discourse" advises the
repeal of an edict allowing the removal of original
names from public monuments and the substitution of
new ones. He was expelled from Rome for political
reasons by Domitian
par 5: northern latitude: "For the sunn, which wee want, ripens
witts as well as fruits." Both there, and here, he
seems to be referring to a theory put forward in
Aristotle's Politics 1327b, that cold climates make
men slow-witted
par 7: Order: Licencing Order provided for other measures
besides censorship
par 7: Copy to himself: copyright
par 7: painfull: painstaking
par 7: quadragesimal: relating to a period of forty
days. In this case Milton refers sneeringly to the
Roman Catholic rules for observing Lent
par 7: Prelats expir'd: dietary,
matrimonial, and other social restrictions imposed by
bishops before the abolition of bishops (episcopacy)
in England in 1646. The control of marriage, fasting,
and certain aspects of printing
par 7: homily: sermon
par 8: violl: vial
par 8: armed men: cadmus sowing
dragon's teeth in Metamorphoses 3. 101-30
par 8: in the eye: Philo Judaeus, in his On the Creation,
speaks of the image of God in man--the mind--as "like
the pupil in the eye"
par 9: whole impression. An entire edition or press run.
par 9: fifth essence. Also known as quintessence. This is how
Hamlet uses the word in Shakespeare's Hamlet 2.2.324.
par 9: Inquisition. See the article on the Inquisition in The
Catholic Encyclopedia.
par 10: Protagoras. According to Cicero in his On the Nature of
the Gods (1. 23), the sophist Protagoras was banished
from Athens (411 BCE) for the beginning lines of his
treatise on the gods: "I am unable to to know whether
the Gods exist or not."
par 10: Vetus Comoedia. The "Old Comedy" of Athens, as written
by Cratinus, Eupolis, and Aristophanes, was
characterized by the vitriolic lampooning of public
figures. It had been traditional to suppose in Milton's
time, due mostly to the accounts of Horace in his Ars
Poetica, that Middle and New Comedy was largely free of
such personal attacks due to legislation against them.
par 11: Epicurus. Epicurus (341-270 BCE) taught that all matter
is composed of irreducible atoms, which are eternal, and
hence were not made by a divine creator. He held that
gods exist, but are indifferent to human affairs, and
that pleasure (or the absence of pain) is the only good.
He emphasized virtue and simple living, gaining pleasure
from easily fulfilled desires, with the highest pleasure
coming from freedom from painful need. His philosophy
was distorted into mere hedonism by those who noted only
his goal of pleasure, and not the means by which it was
attained. Milton harbors this interpretation, and thus
his references to Epicurus are usually derogatory.
par 11: school of Cyrene. Milton refers to the followers of
Aristippus (435-366 BCE) who advocated something much
more like what we would call hedonism than did Epicurus.
par 11: the Cynick. Milton refers to the school of Antisthenes
(455-365 BCE), called Cynosarges, and hence the name
Cynics. One of his students, Diogenes the Cynic (died
320 BCE), developed such a reputation for inpudent and
insolent rhetoric that the whole school came to be
characterized by his practice.
par 11: Chrysostome. John Chrysostom (died 407), a father of the
Eastern Orthodox Church and a patriarch of
Constantinople. He was believed to have read
Aristophanes' plays even though they were thought to be
pagan and scurrilous.
par 12: Lycurgus. Lycurgus was generally believed to have been
the founder of and law-giver to Sparta in the ninth
century BCE.
par 12: Thales. Thales probably was a poet and musician of
ancient Sparta.
par 12: Laconick Apothegms. The apothegms, or short maxims,
favored by those of Laconia (Sparta). Laconic has become
a synonym for terse.
par 12: Archilochus. Archilochus of Paros (seventh century BCE)
was a lyric and satiric poet, notable for having
invented the iambic trimeter and trochaic tetrameter.
par 12: Andromache. See Euripides' Andromache 590-93.
par 13: twelve Tables. A code of Roman law made in 451-450 BCE.
par 13: Pontifick College. The council of high priests which
supervised the religious life of Rome, including the
management of public engineering projects and the
calendar and various other endeavors which required
technical knowledge. Augurs were priests who determined
from various omens the gods' attitude toward public
activities. A flamen was a priest devoted to a
particular god for whom he performed sacrifices on a
daily basis.
par 13: Italy. In 155 BCE, Athens sent an embassy composed of
three philosophers to Rome in order to ask for remission
of a fine imposed on the city for having sacked Oropus.
Among the group were Carneades, a moderate Skeptic;
Critolaus, a follower of Aristotle; and Diogenes the
Babylonian, whom Milton refers to as a Stoic in order to
differentiate him from the Diogenes of Sinope, who was a
Cynic. Their introduction of Athenian philosophy to Rome
drew the opposition of Marcus Portius Cato (234-149
BCE), the public censor charged with regulating public
morals, for he feared an alteration of the manners and
customs of the state. Also known as Cato the Censor, He
was noted for his conservative and anti-Hellenic
policies, in opposition to the phil-Hellenic ideals of
the Scipio family.
par 13: Sabin. Cato was raised in the Sabine territory. Milton
refers to cato's denunciation of Lucius Scipio, father
of Scipio Africanus.
par 13: Nævius. Gnaeus Naevius (about 270 - about 200 BCE) wrote
tragedies, comedies, and an epic. He was fond of
satirizing Scipio and the patrician family of Metelli,
for which he was thrown in prison until he recanted.
par 13: Plautus. Plautus (about 254 - 184 BCE) wrote many plays
that were largely adaptations from Athenian comedies and
had a major effect on English dramatists.
par 13: Menander and Philemon. Menander (342-292 BCE) was one of
the leading Athenain "New Comedy" playwrights, and
Philemon (368-264 BCE) was another.
par 13: Augustus. See Tacitus Annals 1. 72.
par 14: Lucretius. Milton refers to Lucretius' De Rerum Natura
which expounds the doctrine of Epicurus and is addressed
to Memmius in the opening lines. Despite Cicero's
attacks on Epicurus in The Tusculan Disputations
(Against Piso 69), Milton and many others believed
Cicero acted as editor for the second edition of De
Rerum Natura.
par 14: Lucilius, or Catullus, or Flaccus. Lucilius (about 180-
about 102 or 103 BCE) and Catullus (85-54 BCE) were
known for their satirical wit, so also was Horace (65-8
BCE), whose full name was Quintus Horatius Flaccus.
par 14: Titus Livius. Milton refers to a section of Livy's
History which does not survive. Milton refers Tacitus'
Annals 4. 35, an account of the defence of Cremutius
Cordus against the charge of libelling Tiberius by
praising his enemies.
par 14: Naso. Ovid's full name was Publius Ovidius Naso. He was
banished by Augustus allegedly for the immorality of his
Ars amatoria (Art of Love).
par 15: Proclus. Porphyry's (234 - about 305) Against the
Christians was ordered burned by Constantine, the first
Christina emperor. Proclus ( 410- 485) was a
neoplatonist and anti-Christian. Proclus' writings did
not come under attack until fourty-four years after his
death, when Justinian suppressed the Athenian
philosophical schools.
par 15: Carthaginian Councel. There appears to have been no
council in North Africa in 400; see the Catholic
Encyclopedia. Milton quotes from Pietro Sarpi's Historie
of the Councel of Trent (translated by Nathaniel Brent
1620).
par 15: Gentiles. Heathens.
par 15: Padre Paolo. Paolo Servita was Pietro Sarpi's religious
name. One of the leaders of the Venetian movement to
abolish papal secular supremacy, his most important
written works were the Historie of the Council of Trent
and the History of the Inquisition. Milton calls him in
Of Reformation: "the great Venetian antagonist of the
Pope."
par 16: Martin the 5. Martin V (Oddone Colonna) was pope from
1417 until 1431. His bull (papal proclamation) of 1418,
Inter Cunctas, was designed to suppress heretical
writings, including those of pre-Reformation reformers
John Wyclif and John Huss.
par 16: Wicklef. Milton bestowed much praise upon John Wyclif in
his Tetrachordon: "that Englishman honor'd of God to be
the first preacher of a general reformation to all
Europe."
par 16: Husse. John Huss was Czech proto-reformer excommunicated
in 1411 and burned at the stake as a heretic in 1415.
par 16: Leo the 10. Leo X ((Giovanni de Medici) was pope from
1513 until 1521. His Bull of May 3, 1515 broadened
censorship to cover all writings.
par 16: Councell of Trent. Held at Trent from December 13, 1545
until December 4, 1563, the Council of Trent was
convened to discuss and respond to the Reformation's
challenge to Catholic orthodoxy, unity and
ecclesiastical hegemony.
par 16: Spanish Inquisition. See the Catholic Encyclopedia
article on the Inquisition and on the catholic Church's
Censorship of Books.
par 16: Author. In 1542 Pope Paul III reformed the Inquisition,
this time to have jurisdiction over books. He forbade
publication unless a license had been obtained from
inquisitors in advance. In 1559, following the advice of
the Council of Trent, Pope Paul IV issued the first
Index of Prohibited Books, as well as an Index of
Expurgations, which indicated prohibited passages from
books otherwise allowed to be read. In 1562 and 1563 the
Council of Trent added two decrees on the cataloguing of
forbidden books.
par 17: Claudius. 1644 has this marginal annotation at this
point: "Quo veniam daret statum crepitumque ventris in
convivio emittendi. Sueton. in Claudio." In English
(from the Loeb translation of J.C. Rolfe 1914): "[He
{Claudius} is even said to have thought of an edict]
allowing the privilege of breaking wind quietly or
noisily at table [having learned of a man who ran some
risk by restraining himself through modesty" (Lives of
the Caesars 5.32).
par 19: shav'n reverences. Milton refers sneeringly to the
tonsure worn by monks, friars and some other
ecclesastical officials in the Roman Catholic Church.
par 19: spunge/sponge. Eraser.
par 19: Antiphonies. Responsories and antiphonies are parts of
church service in which speakers or singers respond to
one another in alternating speech or song.
par 19: Lambeth house. Lambeth House (now Lambeth Palace) is the
residence in London of the Archbishop of Canterbury,
primate of England. The Bishop of London used to keep a
residence in the precincts of St. Paul's Cathedral.
par 20: cros-leg'd. When Jove's son Hercules was about to be
born, his jealous wife Juno dispatched the goddess of
childbirth to interfere with the delivery by sitting in
front of the mother's door with legs and fingers
crossed. See Ovid's Metamorphoses 9. 281-323.
par 20: Radamanth and his Colleagues. Rhadamanthus, Minos, and
Aeacus were in classical legend, the judges of Hades.
par 20: damned. Milton compares prohibited books to damned
souls. Yet, while the damned are judged after they have
come into existence and lived, books prohibited by the
Licensing Order are condemned without even being born
into the world. Because books are not subject to a fair
trial, as are souls, Milton argues that those who have
wished to issue such licensing orders in the past --
that is, the Catholic Church -- have had to imagine new
realms of hell that could accomodate books of Protestant
countries as well the draconian methods of judgement
necessary to damn them.
par 20: minorites. Followers of St. Francis called themselves
Friars Minor or minorites, for short.
par 21: Lullius. Ramon Lully was a medieval mystic, logician,
philosopher, poet, and martyred missionary. Though he
died as a missionary, he is best remembered as an
alchemist.
par 22: Moses, Daniel, and Paul. Milton appears to refer his
readers to Acts 7:22, Daniel 1:17, and Acts 17:28. These
are all passages where holy men were said to be familiar
with pagan or gentile wisdom.
par 22: a Tragedian. The sentences Milton refers to are found in
three places. In Acts 17:28, Paul quotes from Aratus; in
Titus 1:12, he quotes Epimenides; and in 1 Corinthians
15:33 he quotes from Euripides, a tragedian; see
Heracles 270.
par 22: Julian. Julian the Apostate (Flavius Claudius Julianus
331-63) was emperor of Rome from 361-363. The nephew of
Constantine, he was originally a Christian, but
eventually turned back to the worship of Roman gods. The
decree Milton refers to forbade Christians to teach, or
to become teachers, thus indirectly forbidding them to
study the pagan learning Julian otherwise sought to
promote.
par 22: Apollinarii. Apollinaris of Alexandria and his son wrote
a grammar for Christians and translated books of the
Bible into poetic and dramatic form.
par 22: seven liberall Sciences. Sometimes called the "seven
liberal arts" and the grandfather of what we know call a
liberal arts education, the seven included the medieval
trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric and the
quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, atronomy, and music.
par 22: Socrates. Socrates Scholasticus (about 385 - about 440),
a church historian.
par 22: Decius or Diocletian. The emperors Decius (249-51) and
Diocletian (284-305) pursued severely anti-Christian
policies.
par 23: St. Jerom. Jerome is most famous as a Bible translator,
having translated the entire Bible into Latin, a Bible
that later came to be known as The Vulgate and served as
the authoritative scripture of the Roman Catholic Church
for ages. In his Letter 22, "To Eustochium" (paragraph
30), Jerome recounts that during Lent he fell into a
fever and began having visions in which he was
questioned by God about the state of his soul. He
replied that he was a Christian, but was told: "Thou
liest; thou art a Ciceronian, for the works of that
author possess thy heart." He was subsequently severely
flogged by an angel and when he awoke from his dream he
found lash marks all over his body.
par 23: Basil. Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea (370-79) who
advised Christians to accept what was wise in pagan
writers and also to recognize what was best to ignore.
par 23: Margites. Margites was the name of a caricature of
Achilles in a mock heroic poem that passed under the
name of Homer. Aristotle wrote that this work was to
comedy what the Illiad and Odyssey were to tragedy
(Poetics 1449a). Nothing but a few lines quoted by
Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics (1141a) appear to
survive.
par 23: Morgante. Il Morgante Maggiore by Luigi Pulci was a
mock-heroic predecessor to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso; it
was published in Venice in 1481.
par 24: Eusebius. Eusebius Pamphilius was Bishop of Caesarea
until about 340. Known as the father of Church history,
he wrote an account of Dionysius Alexandrinus'
experience of a vision from God regarding books.
Eusebius' account in is his Church History 7.7.
par 24: answerable. In accordance with, or similar to Paul's
teaching in 1 Thessalonians 5:21.
par 24: pure. Milton quotes Titus 1:15.
par 25: unapocryphal vision. Milton refers to Peter's vision in
Acts 10: 9-16.
par 25: Selden. John Selden (1584-1654) was a parliamentarian
who was imprisoned several times by Charles I for his
opposition to the extreme interpretation of the royal
perogative, which Charles held. The preface of his De
Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinam Ebraeorum
(1640) contains the argument that it is better to review
not only opinions which support one's own ideas, but
also opinions which oppose them.
par 25: repasting of our minds. Milton's Raphael also compares
alimentary and mental diets in Paradise Lost 7. 126-130.
par 26: Manna. See Exodus 16.
par 26: defile not. Milton quotes from Matthew 15: 17-20 and/ or
Mark 7: 14-23.
par 26: perpetuall childhood. Milton echoes Paul's description
of Jewish Christians who kept the law as children or
immature heirs and so no better than slaves; see
Galatians 4.
par 26: Salomon. Solomon; see Ecclesiastes 7:12.
par 26: Syriack. See Acts 19:19.
par 26: practiz'd. Practised the magic described in them.
par 27: Psyche. The story of Cupid and Psyche is found in
Apuleius' The Golden Ass book 5. Venus, Psyche's
mother-in-law, expressed her jealously by pouring wheat,
oats, lentils, and other seeds in a great pile and
assigned the girl the seemingly impossible task of
sorting them by sundown. Compassionate ants do the work
for her.
par 27: knowledge. See Genesis 3:5 and 22.
par 27: wayfaring. The Thomason copy of 1644 (British Library;
Wing M2092) used as coytext for this edition has the "y"
in wayfaring lined through and supplies an "r" above the
line to spell warfaring instead
par 28: immortall garland. Milton seems to be combining the
classical with the biblical. Winners of Olympic races
were presented with wreaths of wild olive. For enduring
temptation, the righteous Christian receives an immortal
according to James 1:12 and 2 Timothy 4: 7-8.
par 28: excrementall. Of the nature of an outgrowth or
excrescence; see OED2
par 28: Spencer. See The Faerie Queen 2. 7-8 and 12.
par 28: Scotus. John Duns Scotus was a medieval philosopher and
theologian. See also the article on Thomas Aquinas.
par 29: Chetiv. The Talmud is composed of both the primary
(Mishnah) and secondary (Gemara) Hebraic commentaries
upon Hebrew scripture, or Torah. It lays claim to an
authority second only to Torah itself. Keri and Chetiv
are technical terms of Masorah, the textual criticism of
Hebrew Scripture. When a textual reading (Chetiv) is
suspected of corruption, or makes for unseemly reading,
or, like the tetragrammaton YHWH is forbidden to be
pronounced aloud, the margin provides a euphemism to be
read aloud, called a Keri.
par 29: Evangelick preparation. Church fathers Clement (in his
Hortatory Address to the Greeks) and Eusebius (in his
Evangelical Preparation) described lewd pagan rituals in
order to convince Christians not to participate in them.
par 29: Irenæus, Epiphanius, Jerom. Irenaeus in Against
Heresies, Epiphanius in Panarion, and Jerome in his
various attacks on Origen, Pelagius, Jovinian, and
Vigilantus, uncovered or exposed numerous heresies to
their readers.
par 30: Petronius. According to Tacitus, Nero called his friend
Petronius elegantiae arbiter, chief judge of taste and
etiquette; See Annals 16.18.
par 30: Arezzo. Pietro Aretino (14921556) was Italian satirist
born in the town of Arezzo. He led a life of adventure
and wrote abusive works for hire. His derisive wit was
so feared that the gifts of those who sought either to
buy him or buy him off made him very wealthy. He was a
friend of Titian, who painted his portrait. His
comedies, such as La cortigiana and La talenta, are
singular, if exaggerated, portraits of his time. His
letters, in spite of their impudent coarseness, are full
of verve. Ariosto called him the "scourge of princes."
See his I Sonetti Lussoriosi, Erotic Sonnets.
par 30: Vicar of hell. Anne Boleyn's cousin, Sir Francis Brian,
the notoriously wicked courtier of Henry VIII.
par 30: Cataio. Cathay or China.
par 31: guide. See Acts 7: 27-31.
par 31: Sorbonists. Scholars of the Sorbonne, a center of Roman
Catholic theology in Paris.
par 31: Arminius. Jacob Hermans (1560-1609), known as Arminius,
was a protestant theologian who taught (contrary to
strict Calvinism) general as opposed to particular
predestination, conditional election, free will, and
religious toleration. Milton later adopted a version of
arminianism himself.
par 33: Aristotle. See Nicomachean Ethics 1095a.
par 33: Salomon. See Proverbs 23: 9.
par 33: Saviour. See Matthew 7: 6.
par 34: want. Lack, or do without.
par 34: prevented. Come ahead of, anticipate.
par 36: Commonwealth. Milton seems to refer, perhaps with a
slight sneer, to Plato's Republic here, but the rest of
the sentence cites also Plato's Laws, as if Milton
considered both dialogues as pretty much of a piece in
imagining a well-governed state, not meaning to describe
one or prescribe how one might be organized.
par 36: there also enacts. See Plato's Laws 801d.
par 36: wanton epigrams and dialogues. Perhaps Milton refers, at
least in part, to Plato's famous dialogues on love and
friendship that praise homoerotic relations above all
others, the Symposium and the Phaedrus.
par 36: friends. Aristophanes lampooned Socrates in The Clouds.
par 37: Dorick. See Plato's Republic 398e where Socrates
proposed supressing soft, effiminate music (Lydian
airs), but allowed the Dorian and Phrygian styles as
more martial and manly.
par 37: Frontispieces. Pictures put before the title of a book.
par 37: rebbeck. A three-stringed lute.
par 37: Monte Mayors. That is, these are the lower class
equivalents to the more posh romances, such as Sidney's
Arcadia and Montemayor's Diana.
par 39: Atlantick and Eutopian polities. Political sytems with
no grounding in reality, like that of Plato's Atlantis
(Critias 113c and Timaeus 25a) or More's Utopia.
par 39: there mentions. That is, in the Laws 643-44.
par 40: gramercy. Merit or worth.
par 40: in the motions. That is, in a puppet show.
par 43: that continu'd Court-libell. Milton refers to the
anti-Parliament newspaper, the Mercurius Aulicus or
"Court Mercury," published from 1642-1645.
par 43: Sevil. Seville was the headquarters of the Spanish
Inquisition.
paragraphs 44 - 91 to be continued...
These supplemental definitions were pulled off the
Dartmouth Online Milton
and modified by your peer. Please be advised to double-check.
This list is meant to be a suggestion only. Your interpretation
counts.
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