“The labour of my thoughts”: The Mind-Body Debate in John Milton’s Comus.

Lysippus:  Strato, thou hast some skill in poetry;

                 What thinkest thou of the Masque? Will it be well?

Strato:      As well as Masque can be.

Lysippus:  As Masque can be?

Strato:      Yes.

                 They must commend their king, and speak in praise

                 Of the assembly, - bless the bride and bridegroom

                 In person of some god. They’re tyed to rules

                 Of flattery.

                                                                       

--Maid’s Tragedy (Act I, Sc. I),                      Beaumont and Fletcher.

The masque as a literary form is not one that most people hold in high esteem. Strato succinctly points out the formal limitations that the masque as a genre is inherently restricted with and thus losing out in terms of respectability. Warton in his History of Poetry dismisses the masque as a mere “branch of the elder drama.” The masque as a genre draws upon varied sources and diverse traditions including those of the Morality plays and pastoral poetry for its sustenance in the midst of other genres that had overtaken it in its growth in history. Enid Welsford in her work The Court Masque however brings up one of the central deviations that Comus has in relation to the typical court masque. For her, the typical court masque “is a dramatised dance, [but] Comus is a dramatised debate”, since “the hinge....on which Comus turns is not the solution of a riddle, not a sudden metamorphosis or revelation, but an act of free choice.” It is for this reason that she thinks Comus is closer to moral dramas like Nabbes’ Microcosmus and Shirley’s Honoria and Mammon. In this paper I will try to focus on the arguments of both Comus and the Lady to figure out whether the views that they represent can be acceptable and wholly applicable to men of all times. Moreover, I shall focus on how Milton’s masque, and the ensuing debate of the protagonists, transcends the simple binaries of right and wrong, good and evil that characterise the genre called the court masque.

Milton’s handling of the genre of the masque has given rise to a plethora of interpretations and comments. Perhaps, these subtle changes in the genre of the masque by Milton are the reason for Robert M. Adams’ comment that Milton’s Comus is “overread” to a great extent. The traditional interpretation of the poem is about the triumph of Virtue, represented by the Lady over Vice symbolised by Comus in the literary work that still evokes interest in the academic circles when other works of the period had either been relegated to the borders of oblivion or lost because of time. A typical philosophical interpretation of the masque examines it as war between reason and passion, as a conflict of the mind and the flesh. The poem is viewed as the victory of the human mind and will over the body or the inferiority of the flesh. The masque in a sense anticipates Cartesian Mind-Body dualism. Descartes in his Meditations on First Philosophy is of the view that the mind is superior to the body. The body and all the external sensory perceptions are deceptive and cannot be relied upon. Milton too engages in a similar debate of sorts, pitting the Lady and Comus against one another in an attempt to portray the superiority of the human mind and will over the desires of the body.

A great deal of the action of the masque takes place in the forest. In Arthurian romances, the forest plays a two-fold role. It can be seen as the binary opposite of civilized society, a place where hideous creatures, sorcerers, and witches tempt the “forlorn and wandering passenger.” It is also a place for the knight errant to test his prowess in battle. But more importantly, the forest becomes a region of the mind where one can construct fantasies. The setting does not need to be fantastic but merely allows for a place where things might happen which might be considered absurd and unreal in daily life. In Comus, therefore, the forest becomes a battleground of sorts for the verbal duel between Comus and the Lady. It is the place where Comus(representative of the desires of the physical body) and the Lady( representative of the mind) can have their ideological clash to decide who comes out as the winner. However Milton’s deviation from a traditional masque in the poem is his emphasis on the grey area that lies between both right and wrong, and the idea of good and evil. From the outset Milton makes us realize that Comus and the Lady are placed at extreme and untenable positions. Milton through his masque might also be questioning the rightness of these extreme ideological stands that have been taken by these characters in the poem.

The transformation myth employed in the poem is an old one and can be found in literature of all ages. Homer’s Odyssey is the primary source for the Circe motif that Milton employs. The transformation theme particularly pertinent to the text is that of the transformation of the head of a man with that of an animal and can also be found in works like Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and more recently in Thomas Mann’s Transposed Heads and Girish Karnad’s play Hayavadana. The Circe motif of transformation however is essential to the masque. The Mind-Body debate is presented through this motif. Comus in the masque is the son of Bacchus and Circe. Milton, through the character of Comus, is presenting to the reader the representative of the Body in the ideological battle with the mind. Milton’s Comus embodies a view that can be found in Thomas Mann’s Transposed Heads. Mann retells the story from an ancient collection of short stories in Sanskrit called Kathasaritasagara in which he ridicules the mechanical conception of life which differentiates between the body and the mind. He mocks the philosophy which holds the head superior to the body. The human body, Mann argues, is a fit instrument for the fulfilment of human destiny. In a sense, Comus’ argument can be seen to be a precursor of Mann’s.  Comus’ “orient liquor in a Crystal Glasse” offers the weary mortal a chance to experience the actual pleasures of Nature that he believes is superior to “lean and sallow Abstinence” that is preached by the Lady.

However, unlike his mother Circe, Comus only transforms the head of his victim into an animal rather than the whole body. He does so because it is the mind of his victim that he wants to conquer. While the transformation is a physical one, it is also figurative, done in an attempt to neutralise the superior metaphysical connection the mind has with the universe, a connection which is denied to the body:

“Can any mortal mixture of Earths mould                                                                                   

 Breath such Divine inchanting ravishment?”

Comus’ modus operandi reflects what in the 20^th century would be referred to as possessing fascist tendencies. Comus’ transformation of his victims’ heads usurps their ability to reason so they remain subservient to his will as a ruler. While living in the forest he is supreme ruler, but the Lady’s arrival anticipates a type of opposition to his fascist rule which he is unable to accept. An opposition party in a fascist rule is unheard of, and Comus must crush her opinion either by “well plac’t words.....Baited with reasons not unplausible” or by the power of sheer force. To do so he must employ all the weapons he has at his arsenal. Apart from the magic potion at Comus’ disposal which changes the head of a person into an animal, Comus also has the gift of rhetoric which functions in a similar way to the propaganda arguments of the Fascists. Comus’ argument, like Satan’s in Paradise Lost when he is about to tempt Eve, is attractive and alluring not because they are lies and fabrications but because they have at their core certain half truths:

“Wherefore did Nature pour her bounties forth,

  With such a full and unwithdrawing hand,

 Covering the earth with odours, fruits and flocks,

 Thronging the seas with spawn innumerable....?”

Comus exploits what A. S. P. Woodhouse calls the “two complementary aspects of Nature”- Nature that causes perpetual fecundity and growth, and Nature that is an ordered whole, a rationally graduated scale. His argument is that the natural world with its variety of gifts is an invitation for man to take part in ribald revelry and unrestricted enjoyment, a return to sensual bestiality as opposed to the principles preached by “Strict Age, and sowre Severity.” A refusal to partake in this “carnal sensualty” in a “pet of temperance” is to disregard natural processes of growth and regeneration. Comus posits the argument that Nature herself knows nothing of chastity and that true existence “consists in mutual and partaken bliss.” The Lady however refuses to believe him:

“Imposter, do not charge most innocent Nature,

As if she would her children should be riotous

With her abundance she good cateress

Means her provision only to good

That live according to her sober laws,

And holy dictates of spare temperance.”

She calls Comus’ arguments “false rules pranked in reason’s garb.” Comus attempts to mimic the essence of the Mind, reason and logic, but is bound to fail because that is the privilege only of the Lady. The Lady does not contradict his picture of Nature but merely points out its incompleteness. For her, true existence is not the prostitution of Nature’s gift for sensual pleasures but rather a life of temperance and moderation. Comus has the “power to cheat the eye with blear illusion\ And give it false presentments” but cannot cheat the mind. Milton’s Comus therefore can be read as a text about the deceptive nature of external sensory perceptions. The Lady is cheated by Comus’ external appearance of a shepherd, but the fallacies of his arguments are clearly perceived by her mind.

The lady misappropriates her ability to defend herself from Comus to her Chastity. While the elder brother is right in declaring that “she has a hidden strength”, it is not her Chastity but rather “the unpolluted temple of the Mind” that saves her from the “rash hand of bold Incontinence.” While Comus can chain up her body to the chair, he “canst not touch the freedom” of her mind. “The mind is its own place”, Satan had said in Paradise Lost, and the Lady knows that all of Comus’ enchantments cannot breach the barriers of her reason and logic.

Milton’s superiority as a poet lies in his ability to take a particular genre and modify it, giving it his own characteristic signature. In the masque too Milton does not make it a simple battle of Good against Evil. The Lady resists Comus’ enchantments, but cannot free herself of her own volition. Surprisingly, she needs saving not once but twice. Firstly it is the help offered by the Brothers and the Haemony given by the Attendant Spirit that drives Comus away. She is however still stuck to the chair. She requires the help of Sabrina, the water nymph to be saved completely.  For Clara Stevens, “Virtue’s resistance of Vice, while vitally important, failed to solve the problem, and that had not Sabrina’s aid been secured, the so called “triumph” would have been a distressing and unsatisfactory situation. The Nymph’s pre-eminence thus becomes striking.” Stevens argues that human agency alone is not enough to save the Lady from the grip of Comus. This is Milton’s point of departure from the superiority of the Mind over the Body. Stevens’ argument falls in line with the argument of Woodhouse where he asserts that despite the Lady’s dismissal of Comus’ seduction she nonetheless requires divine grace to save her from her plight.

            Divine grace is a theological concept that recurs in Milton’s poems, in Samson Agonistes, in Paradise Lost and also Paradise Regained. Divine grace is beyond human comprehension and therefore beyond the grasp of the Mind or the Body. It is a factor that plays an important and irreplaceable role in the redemption of a human soul. Reason alone cannot lead to salvation. What is needed is divine grace, the essence of which cannot be subsumed by any ontological considerations. This divine grace is bestowed upon the Lady through the agency of Sabrina, a nymph and therefore a supernatural being. In a sense Milton’s Comus attempts to open up the possibility of a solution to the world’s problems from outside the natural world itself.

FUZAIL ASAR SIDDIQI

PG-II

ROLL NO: 16