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Milton's Views on Chastity

1) The document discusses Milton's early education and influences, including his study of poetry, philosophy, and Christian scripture. 2) Milton argues that unchastity is more dishonorable for a man than a woman, as man is made in God's image and glory. 3) He refers to a passage in Revelation about those who were not defiled with women and will accompany the Lamb, which he takes to mean fornication rather than marriage.

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79 views2 pages

Milton's Views on Chastity

1) The document discusses Milton's early education and influences, including his study of poetry, philosophy, and Christian scripture. 2) Milton argues that unchastity is more dishonorable for a man than a woman, as man is made in God's image and glory. 3) He refers to a passage in Revelation about those who were not defiled with women and will accompany the Lamb, which he takes to mean fornication rather than marriage.

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patricia2308
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ENGL 220 Milton

Professor John Rogers


Poetry and Virginity
I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps. And they sung as it were a new
song before the throne . . . and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty
and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth. These are they which were not
defiled with women: for they are virgins. (Rev. 14:2-3).
Next, (for heare me out now Readers) that I may tell ye whether my younger feet
wanderd; I betook me among those lofty Fables and Romances, which recount in
solemne cantos the deeds of Knighthood founded by our victorious Kings; & from hence
had in renowne over all Christendome. There I read it in the oath of every Knight, that he
should defend to the expence of his best blood, or of his life, if it so befell him, the
honour and chastity of Virgin or matron. . . Thus from the Laureat fraternity of Poets,
riper yeares, and the ceaselesse round of study and reading led me to the shady spaces of
philosophy, but chiefly to the divine volumes of Plato, and his equall Xenophon. Where
if I should tell ye what I learnt, of chastity and love, I means that which is truly so, whose
charming cup is only vertue which she bears in her hand to those who are worthy. The
rest are cheated with a thick intoxicating potion which a certain Sorceresse the abuser of
loves name carries about; and how the first and chiefest office of love, begins and ends in
the soule, producing those happy twins of her divine generation knowledge and vertue,
with such abstracted sublimities as these, it might be worth your listning, Readers, as I
may one day hope to have ye in a still time, when there shall be no chiding; not in these
noises, the adversary as ye know, barking at the doore; or searching for me at the
Burdellos where it may be he has lost himselfe, and raps up without pitty the sage and
rheumatick old Prelatesse with all her young Corinthian Laity to inquire for such a one.
Last of all not in time, but as perfection is last, that care was ever had of me, with my
earliest capacity not to be negligently traind in the precepts of Christian Religion: This
that I have hitherto related, hath bin to shew, that though Christianity had bin but slightly
taught me, yet a certain reservdnesse of naturall disposition and morall discipline learnt
out of the noblest Philosophy was enough to keep me in disdain of farre lesse
incontinences then this of the Burdello. But having had the doctrine of holy Scripture
unfolding those chaste and high mysteries with timeliest care infusd, that the body is for
the Lord and the Lord for the body, thus also I argud to my selfe; that if unchastity in a
woman whom Saint Paul terms the glory of man, be such a scandall and dishonour, then
certainly in a man who is both the image and glory of God, it must, though commonly not
so thought, be much more deflouring and dishonourable. In that he sins both against his
owne body which is the perfeter sex, and his own glory which is in the woman, and that
which is worst, against the image and glory of God which is in himselfe. Nor did I
slumber over that place expressing such high reward of ever accompanying the Lambe,
with those celestiall songs to others inapprehensible, but not to those who were not
defild with women, which doubtlesse meanes fornication: For mariage must not be

calld a defilement.
--Milton, An Apology [for Smectymnuus] Against a Pamphlet (1642), in
Complete Prose Works (Yale, 1953), vol. 1, pp. 890-92.
Some of late called me the Lady. But why do I seem to them too little of a man?
--Milton, to his college classmates (Prolusion VI, p. 865)
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
--1 Corinthians 13
SMECTYMNUUS
masque
Lord John Egerton, Earl of Bridgewater
Henry Lawes

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