WORDS TO THE WHYS

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Milton: At A Solemn Music

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At a Solemn Music (1633–34)
by John Milton (1608–1674)

BLEST pair of Sirens, pledges of Heaven’s joy,
Sphere-born harmonious Sisters, Voice and Verse,
Wed your divine sounds, and mixed power employ,
Dead things with inbreathed sense able to pierce;
And to our high-raised phantasy present
That undisturbèd Song of pure consent,
Aye sung before the sapphire-coloured Throne
To Him that sits thereon,
With saintly shout and solemn jubily;
Where the bright Seraphim in burning row
Their loud uplifted angel trumpets blow,
And the Cherubic host in thousand quires
Touch their immortal harps of golden wires,
With those just Spirits that wear victorious palms,
Hymns devout and holy psalms
Singing everlastingly:
That we on Earth, with undiscording voice,
May rightly answer that melodious noise;
As once we did, till disproportioned Sin
Jarred against Nature’s chime, and with harsh din
Broke the fair music that all creatures made
To their great Lord, whose love their motions swayed
In perfect diapason, whilst they stood
In first obedience, and their state of good.
O, may we soon again renew that song,
And keep in tune with Heaven, till God ere long
To his celestial consort us unite,
To live with Him, and sing in endless morn of light!

Source: The Harvard Classics

  • Sirens: In Plato's Republic 10. 616-17, celestial spheres were moved by sirens who produced the music of the spheres.
  • Voice, and Vers. Milton aims to distinguish between "Voice," the music of the spheres representing natural order, and "Vers," the song of the angelic choir symbolizing heavenly order.
  • phantasie: Imagination.
  • concent: 1645 reads "content," but 1673 and Trinity MS have "concent" which seems preferable.
  • saphire-colour'd throne: In Ezekiel's visions of God, he describes the throne of God "as the appearance of a sapphire stone" (Ezekiel 1: 26).
  • Where the bright Seraphim . . . Harps of golden wires. George Frederic Handel set these four lines to music in "Let the Bright Seraphim" (performance by Ken Whitcomb at MidiWorld.com/handel), an aria added to an oratorio that Handel composed based on Samson from Milton's Samson Agonistes.
  • victorious Palms: In Revelations 7:9, multitudes of people "of all nations" are given seals indicating their salvation.
  • melodious noise: The music of the angelic choir.
  • disproportion'd sin: Milton alludes to the Fall of man due to "Man's First Disobedience" (Paradise Lost 1.1).
  • Jarr'd against natures chime: Broke the harmony of the natural order.
  • perfect Diapason: Complete harmony orignally used to decribe the harmony of the notes in an octave. Sigmund Spaeth (Milton's Knowledge of Music, 109) remarks: "Diapason represents the harmony between Heaven and Earth as consisting of the interval of the octave, in other words, the most perfect concord excepting an actual unison . . . Man's state of good consisted in an undeviating conformity to divine law."
  • first obedience: The condition known in theology as "original justice."
  • consort: A group of musicians, probably angels, musical harmony, or a marriage partner.
References: Luxon, Thomas H., ed. The Milton Reading Room - www.dartmouth.edu/~milton, June, 2012.

See also: "At a Solemn Musick": Structure and Meaning by Mother M. Christopher Pecheux

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