Kumar Saurabh
PG I,
Roll No-74
PG I,
Roll No-74
Course: Milton
Written in
the year 1634, John Milton’s Comus (A Mask Presented at Ludlow Castle, 1634) was presented before John Egerton in a private family function,
celebrating his appointment as the Lord President of Wales. Writing at the age
of 25, Milton’s Comus was written in
anticipation of its performance by the Egerton kids and hence the narrative
typically travels from ignorance to experience, while educating the actors of
the importance of chastity and temperance.
Milton composed Comus
just two years after the publication of Shakespeare’s Second Folio and had
also penned his famous ‘On Shakespeare’ (An Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke) which was carried
as an introduction to the Second Folio. Inspired by Shakespeare’s works, Milton’s
Comus can be seen as a reworking of
the bard’s Tempest and a close
reading of the two texts reveals definite similarities.
Comus is a visual
spectacle. A moralizing masque that preaches temperance and chastity over lust,
Milton’s Comus offers little depth in
terms of plot structure. It remains a spectacle that brings alive an enchanted
world of magical beings, complete with spectacular creatures, magical spells
and abstract locations. Characters do not develop over the course of the narrative
but merely travel from ignorance to experience/wisdom with the entire cast
coming to a happy resolution at the end of the play. In this regard, Comus comes very close to Shakespeare’s The Tempest. A brief reading of The Tempest reveals no intricate plot
structure. Instead Shakespeare presents to his audience a magical world,
similar to the world of Comus, where
magicians, fairies, spirits, masques and feasts come together to light up a
desolate yet foreboding island.
As Milton embarks on a poetic enterprise to delve upon the importance of
morality in human life, he explores in Comus
the essential thematic battle between Chastity and Lust. Lust is personified by
Comus who is a symbol of extravagance and indulgence and it is his attempt to
tempt the chaste and pure Lady that forms the central narrative of the masque.
While the Lady symbolizes chastity and temperance, Comus is the anti-thesis of
virtue-he is that bestial urge that hides in every man. Chancing upon a lost
maiden in his treacherously deceptive forest, Comus seeks to persuade the Lady
to drink from his chalice in his bid to reduce her to her bestial incarnation.
Virginity and its associations with purity and morality is an essential
theme in Comus. Enslaved and entrapped by Comus in his
palatial forest, the Lady is tempted to ‘drink in’ the earthly pleasures of
lust and gluttony.
List Lady be not
coy, and be not cosen’d
With that same vaunted name Virginity,
Beauty is nature's coyn, must
not be hoorded,
But must be currant , and the good thereof
Consists in mutual and partak'n bliss,
Unsavoury in th' injoyment of
it self.
If you let slip time, like a neglected rose
It withers on the stalk with languish't head.
Beauty is natures brag,
and must be shown
In courts, at feasts, and high solemnities
Where most may wonder at the workmanship;
It is for homely features to keep home,
They had their name thence; course complexions
And cheeks of sorry grain will serve to ply [ 750 ]
The sampler, and to teize the huswifes wooll.
Love-darting eyes, or tresses like the Morn?
There was another meaning in these gifts,
Think what, and be adviz'd,
you are but young yet[i]
But as Comus embodies the spirit of vice in humans, the Lady embodies
virtue and hence remains steadfast in the face of temptation, vowing to not
give in to Comus’ sexual advances.
Fool do not boast,
Thou canst not touch the freedom of my minde
With all thy charms, although this corporal
rinde
Thou haste immanacl'd, while Heav'n sees
good.[ii]
The importance of Chastity and Virginity and its battle with lust finds
resonance in Shakespeare’s Tempest with
Prospero taking elaborate care to ensure the innocence of his daughter. He
protects her honour both from the monster that is Caliban as well as from
Miranda’s suitor Ferdinand, the affair between the two being designed by
Prospero himself. He gives his daughter’s hand to Ferdinand but reminds him
that the sacred vows of chastity must only be broken on their nuptial bed and
not before. Having tied
Ferdinand to a holy vow to not break Miranda’s virginity, Prospero goes on to
organize a divine masque in their honour, showering them with blessings.
As Prospero
calls upon Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, to bless the couple, she
immediately seeks to confirm if Venus and her son Cupid have already tempted
the couple into breaking their chaste vow. Upon receiving confirmation of
Miranda’s virginity, Ceres and Iris invite Juno, the goddess of love and
marriage, and proceed to bless her union with Ferdinand.
In stark
contrast, Milton’s Comus is aided in his revelry and indulgence by the same
goddess who Shakespeare seems to shun in his masque. Venus plays an important
role in Comus’ revelry and Milton further goes on to invoke the Thracian
Goddess of immodesty and debauchery, Cottyto.
What hath night to
do with sleep?
Night hath better sweets to prove,
Venus now wakes, and wak'ns Love.
Tis onely day-light that
makes Sin,
Which these dun shades will ne're report.
Hail Goddesse of
Nocturnal sport
Dark vaild Cotytto, t' whom the secret flame
Of mid-night Torches
burns; mysterious Dame
That ne're art call'd,
but when the Dragon woom
Of Stygian darknes spets her
thickest gloom,
And makes one blot of all the ayr[iii],
Therefore
both Tempest and Comus deal with the conflict between Chastity and Lust but Milton’s
treatment of the virtue differs from Shakespeare’s. While Shakespeare regards
virginity as a requisite for a happy and fruitful marriage in Tempest, Milton’s portrayal of virginity in Comus eventually leads to freedom of mind and can stand as a
cornerstone for humans in times of darkness and uncertainty.
Milton’s
portrayal of Comus comes across as a hybrid of Shakespeare’s Prospero and
Caliban, with Comus embodying the essential characteristics of both the
characters from The Tempest.
The use of
magic draws Comus and Prospero together and just in the manner in which
Prospero rules over his island with the aid of his magical staff and books,
Comus presides over his forest with his wand and his tempting magical potion.
While some
may argue that Prospero is different from Comus as he uses magic to protect the
virtuous and chaste, it is important to remember that Prospero seeks only to
attain what he believes is right and just. He serves his own vision of justice.
And hence he brings down nature’s wrath on a ship full of men and then goes on
separate the King from his son who he then marries to his daughter in a
politically motivated matrimony. He enslaves Caliban in his own island and
tortures him into servitude while threatening Ariel to aid and abet him in his
‘just’ endeavours. Prospero therefore uses his magic to do what he thinks is
right and hence serves his own idea of justice.
Comus too
can be read in a similar light. Presiding over his forest with his band of
bestial men and women, Comus comes very close to Prospero in the sense that he
too uses his magical powers to serve his own belief, his vision of man’s
purpose on earth. But though he entraps, deceives and lures innocent men and
women in his lair, his magic is not complete. And hence while the Lady is given
a chance to resist Comus’ sexual aggression, King Alonso and his men are mere
puppets and trudge along a chartered course, marked out in great detail by
Prospero and his allied spirits. Comus’ rhetorical ability also reminds one of
Prospero who cajoles and manipulates all those around him to do his own
bidding.
Despite his
similarities to Prospero, Comus is in principle, a glorified improvement upon
the character of Caliban. Shakespeare’s Caliban is born to Sycrorax and the
devil himself and lives in complete harmony with the island that has now been
usurped by Prospero. Comus on the other hand is
the son of Baccchus and Circe, giving Milton’s antagonist a tinge of
supernatural ability while relating him with revelry, magic and lust.
Within the navil of this hideous Wood,
Immur'd in cypress shades a Sorcerer dwels
Of Bacchus, and of Circe born,
great Comus,
Deep skill'd in
all his mothers witcheries,
And here to every thirsty wanderer,
By sly enticement gives his banefull cup,
With many murmurs mixt,
whose pleasing poison
The visage quite transforms of him that drinks,
And the inglorious likenes of a beast
Fixes instead, unmoulding reasons mintage
Character'd in the face[iv]
Slaves to
their desires, an obvious similarity between the two characters is their
aversion to the virtues of chastity and temperance as both remain rooted in
their yearning for sensual and material pleasures. While Caliban attempts to
rape Miranda and populate this isle
with Calibans, Comus seeks to
seduce the Lady into submission and make her his Queen (Ile speak to her And she shall be my Queen).
Quite interestingly, both Shakespeare and Milton make use of the magical
potion or the celestial liquid to enhance their characterization of Caliban and
Comus. For Comus, the magical potion is integral in luring his victims and
transforms them into their bestial self. And for Caliban, the celestial liquid
is what enables him to truly unmask himself on the stage as he reveals his
monstrous, vengeful self while plotting the murder of the usurper Prospero.
There are other similarities too between Miton’s Comus and Shakespeare’s Tempest.
The introduction of the attendant spirit brings to the mind the character of
Ariel who aids and abets Prospero in serving justice to his wrong-doers. Both
Ariel and the attendant spirit are agents of justice and while Ariel wrecks
ships, enchants men and performs allegorical masques in order to bring King
Alosno and his crew to justice, the attendant spirit watches over all those who
cross the forest and protects them from the deceiving Comus.
Hence one can identify a common thematic thread that runs through
Shakespeare’s Tempest, into Milton’s Comus. However despite the similarities,
Comus remains an integral Miltonic
work and mirrors his own spiritual and personal beliefs as he sought to move
from ignorance to wisdom.
Bibliography:
The following works were referred to in the composition of this paper:
1. Milton, John. Poems. Edited
by Cleanth Brooks and John Edward Hardy
2. Milton and Gender. Edited by Catherine Gimelli Martin
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