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Milton and Manso: Cups or Books?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Michele De Filippis
Michele De Filippis*
Affiliation:
University of California
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Extract

In the following passage from bis Epitaphium Damonis (lines 181–197) Milton refers to two cups which he is supposed to have received from Manso, and which he describes as follows: … tum quae mihi pocula Mansus, Mansus, Chalcidicae non ultima gloria ripae Bina dedit, mirum artis opus, mirandus et ipse, Et circum gemino caelaverat argumento: In medio Rubri Maris unda, et odoriferum ver. Littora longa Arabum, et sudantes balsama silvae; Has inter Phoenix, divina avis, unica terris, Caeruleum fulgens diversicoloribus alis, Auroram vitreis surgentem respicit undis. Parte alia polus omnipatens, et magnus Olympus: Quis putet? hic quoque Amor pictaeque in nube pharetrae, Arma corusca faces, et spicula tincta pyropo; Nec tenues animas pectusque ignobile vulgi Hinc ferit; at circum flammantia lumina torquens Semper in erectum spargit sua tela per orbes Impiger, et pronos nunquam collimat ad ictus: Hinc mentes ardere sacrae, formaeque deorum.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 51 , Issue 3 , September 1936 , pp. 745 - 756
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1936

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References

1 The following translation is by Masson, and is given by Jerram, C. S., in his The Lycidas and Epitaphium Damonis of Milton (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1874) p. 140:

… and mainly the two cups which Manso—

Manso, not the last of Southern Italy's glories—

Gave me, a wonder of art, which himself, a wonder of nature,

Carved with a double design of his own well-skilled invention:

Here the Red Sea in the midst, and the odoriferous summer,

Araby's winding shores, and palm trees sweating their balsams,

Mid which the bird divine, earth's marvel, the singular Phoenix,

Blazing caerulean-bright with wings of different colors,

Turns to behold Aurora surmounting the glassy-green billows:

Obverse is heaven's vast vault and the great Olympian mansions.

Who would suppose it? Even here is love and his cloud-painted quiver,

Arms glittering torch-lit, and arrows tipped with fire-gem.

Nor is it meagre souls and the base-born breast of the vulgar

Hence that he strikes; but, whirling round him his luminous splendours,

Always he scatters his darts right upwards sheer through the star-depths

Restless, and never designs to level the pain of them downwards;

Whence the sacred minds and the forms of the gods ever-burning.

2 Jerram, op. cit., p. 122; MacKellar, W., The Latin Poems of John Milton (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1930), p. 349.

3 Jerram, op. cit., p. 122; MacKellar, op. cit., p. 349.

4 Masson, David, The Life of John Milton (London, 1881), i, 819; ii (1871 edition) 92, note.

5 Jerram, op. cit., p. 122; MacKellar, op. cit., p. 349.

6 MacKellar, op. cit., p. 349.

7 Hartwell, K.E., Lactantius and Milton (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929), pp. 123 ff.

8 Ibid., pp. 131–132.

9 Gottfried, R., “Milton, Lactantius, Claudian, and Tasso,” SP, xxx, (1933), 497–503.

10 Ibid., p. 502.—Were one to follow the same line of procedure, one could give hundreds of other sources which deal with the legend of the phœnix, and from which one could easily combine the elements upon which both Miss Hartwell and Mr. Gottfried have based their cases, namely: the uniqueness of the phœnix, its brilliant plumage, its waiting for the dawn, the cerulean color of its wings, etc. For a list of 128 passages in ancient literature dealing with the phœnix legend, see Fitzpatrick, Mary Cletus, Lactanti De Ave Phænice (Philadelphia, 1933), pp. 12–15. Other passages are indicated in the body of the book, but the subject is far from being exhausted since the author has even failed to mention Du Bartas' version of the “divine bird” (La Première Semaine, v, 546 ff.); Acevedo's (La Creación del Mundo, v, 116–135), as well as several other less important versions to be found in bestiaries and other works of similar nature. However, there is enough phoenix material in Mary Fitzpatrick's work to keep busy for a long time any student of Milton who may be interested in tracing the probable sources of the phœnix described in the Epitaphium Damonis.

11 Morsolin, Bernardo, Giangiorgio Trissino, Monografia d'un gentiluomo letterato del secolo XVI. Second edition (Firenze: Successori Le Monnier, 1894), pp. 134–135.

12 It should be remembered that in line 135 Milton says he received from his Florentine friends “Fiscellae calathique, et cerea vincla cicutae” and Masson (Life of Milton, ii, p. 90, note 1), does not hesitate to say, “I doubt not that the rush-plaits, reed-stops of wax, Gc., are poetical names for little presents actually received from his Florentine friends.”

13 Tutte le opere di Giovan Giorgio Trissino (Verona: Jacopo Vallarsi, 1729), i, 373–374.

14 Carrara, Enrico, La Poesia Pastorale. Storia dei Generi Letterari Italiani. (Milano, Vallardi).

15 Opere Toscane di Luigi Alamanni al Cristianissimo Re Francesco Primo (Roma: Stamperia Gaetani, 1806), i, 79.—Still another description of a cup, this one based on the second book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, and dealing with the familiar legend of Phaëton driving the chariot of the sun, which ended so tragically for him and for his two sisters, the Heliades, who were turned into poplar trees, may be read in Francesco Maria Molza's La Ninfa Tiberina, octaves 12–17. And another may be read in Annibal Caro's Egloga ad imitazion del Tirsi di Teocrito, lines 50–89. To these should be added many Italian translations of Theocritus' Idyll i.—An elaborate description of a cup may also be found in Sannazaro's Arcadia, near the end of Prose IV. For other descriptions of cups in Spenser and in some of the poets of the French Pléiade, see Merrit Y. Hughes, Virgil and Spenser, University of California Publications in English, ii, No. 3, 277–283 (University of California Press; Berkeley, Calif., 1929).

16 The same idea is expressed by Lorenzo Crasso in his Elogii di Huomini Letterati (Venetia: Combi, & La Nou, 1666). Part i, p. 311, where he says that Manso “giovava sempre con uffici di cortesia, ma in materia d'interesse non mai, essendo alquanto dominato dall'avarizia.”

17 Manso wrote seventeen dialogues, and Tasso is one of the interlocutors in all of them.

18 Black, John, Life of Torquato Tasso (London: James Ballantyne and Co., 1810), ii, 467.—I wish to express my thanks to Professor James H. Hanford of Western Reserve University who urged me to prepare this little study, and who examined the manuscript, offering much useful help. Thanks are also due to Professor Rudolph Altrocchi who first introduced me to Manso.

19 Masson, op. cit., i, 831.

20 Agar, Herbert, Milton and Plato (Princeton University Press, 1928).

21 For a partial reproduction of Manso's last will, see Manfredi, Michele, Giovanni Battista Manso nella vita e nelle opere (Napoli: Nicola Jovene & Co., 1919), pp. 251–267.—A complete copy of it is kept at Monte Manso (Via Nilo 34 Naples); another copy is in the Archivio di Stato di Napoli, among the “Carte del Monastero del Divino Amore,” vol. 3797, fols. 21–31. A list of Manso's literary works is contained therein.

22 Erocallia, ovvero dell'Amore e della Bellezza, Dialoghi xii di Gio. Battista Manso Marchese della Villa con gli Argomenti a ciascun dialogo del Cavalier Marino et nel fine un trattato del dialogo dell'istesso Autore. Con tre Tavole, l'una dei Capitoli marginali, l'altra delle materie Morali, Naturali, e Metafisiche trattate secondo la dottrina Peripatetica Platonica e Teologica, l'ultima de' diversi Autori e luoghi di Scrittura esposti. In Venetia, Eugenio Deuchino, mdcxxviii.

23 Poesie Nomiche di Gio. Battista Manso, Marchese di Villa, Signor della città di Bisaccia, e di Pianca, Accademico Otioso, Divise in Rime Amorose, Sacre, e Morali. F. Baba, Venetia, mdcxxxv.

24 A. Bruni's Veneri was published in 1632, so that if this story were true, the Poesie Nomiche should have appeared the same year. But this edition, so far as is known, never existed.

25 Borzelli, Angelo Giovati Battista Manso, Marchese di Villa (Napoli: Federico & Ardia, 1916), pp. 54–75.

26 Rime d'illustri ingegni napoletani (Venezia: Ciera, 1633). The date of publication of this book is missing, because the first two pages are missing, but is given as 1633 by Toppi, Biblioteca napoletana (Napoli: Bulifon, 1678), p. 143, and by Minieri-Riccio, Notizie biografiche e bibliografiche degli scrittori napoletani fioriti nel secolo XVII (Milano: Hoepli, 1875), p. 10.

27 Manfredi, op. cit., pp. 211–216.

28 See Villey, P., Les sources italiennes de la “Défense et illustration de la langue française, in Bibliothèque de la Renaissance, Vol. ix (Paris, Champion, 1909).

29 See Vianey, J., Le petrarquisme en France au XVIe siècle. In Travaux et Mémoires de Montpellier, Serie littéraire, iii (Montpellier-Paris: Coulet et fils, Masson et Cie, 1909).