Lycidas -- Some Mythemes Folded In [jvsickle@brooklyn.cuny.edu]

LINES time, place, action (chrono-topo-pragmatic) linking themes Theocritus Virgil Spenser

1-24 (24) [getting set: I / L / traditions of poetics: Apollo+Venus+Bacchus] Idyll Ecloga Aegloga

1-14 Yet once more, O ye laurels... I come to pluck... w/ forced.. rude.. [address to]

8 for L. is dead.. ere his prime ... 5 11

9 peer... 6,7 3,5,7,10 8

10 Who would not sing for L.? 10

11 He knew himself to sing, 3,5

12 and build the lofty rhyme... 7 4,6,7,8,9 7,10

15-22 Begin then, sisters of the sacred well... Jove [address to Muses??] 1,11 3,4,6,10 1,12,& ?

16 somewhat loudly sweep [setting poetic key] 4 4,7,10

23-24 For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same.. 5,6,7 5,7,9 ?hill

25-49 (25) [NARRATIVE: past union in nature & poetry, present separation]

25-36 Together...we [NARRATIVE amplifies sameness theme of 22-23] 6 /7 ?

28-31 [dawn to dusk, whole day] 1,2,6,8,10 passim

32-33 rural ditties tempered to oaten flute 1,10 1,passim

34-35 satyrs danced, and fauns 7 6 4

36 OLD Damoetas loved to hear our song [chronotopic] 6 2,3

37-49 But O the heavy change, now thou art gone, Now.. never [address to?] 5 11

41 echoes mourn 5 ?

43 Shall now more 5 ?

45- As.. Or.. Or.. Such, Lycidas, thy loss.. [analogy: I 8, 18;E 5] 1 2,5 ?

50-84 (35) [OLD pastoral dejected: L & M self devalued/’Tut tut: fame-Jove’ non-Xian]

50-56 Where were ye nymphs when... 1,7 5,10 ?

52- on the steep (sc. hill).. OLD bards = Druids, Mona, Deva [unlike Th, V] 6

56 fondly dream [‘what madness?’ Th,V; cf. ‘false’ 153] 11 2,6 ?

57-63 Had ye been there...for what could that have done? [nymphs] 1 10

58 What could the muse herself...[Calliope for Orpheus] 4

60 universal nature did lament [‘all’] 1,7 3,4,5,6 4,11

64-84 Alas! What boots... the homely slighted shepherd’s trade [M self] 16 1,9 6,10,12

- 70 Fame... slits the thin-spun life. ‘But not the praise’, 7 6 10

+ 77 Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears: 6

85-131 (47) [OLD pastoral reaffirmed: a great motif revised & amplified

85-87 O fountain Arethuse 1 10

and... Mincius crowned with vocal reeds 1 7,10[ G3]

87 That strain... was of a higher mood [sc. fame » epic]: 4,7 4,8 10

I 88-102 But now my oat [sc. avena] proceeds, 1,10

And listens to the herald of the sea [OLD pastoral parade]1 10

II 103-107 Next Camus, reverend sire... [river of Cambridge, cf. Priapus, Silvanus] 6

III 108-131 Last came, and last did go, [cf. Aphrodite, Pan] 1 10

109 The pilot of the Galilean lake... stern bespake

[cf. Sp’s satire on church, but M appropriates St. P]

132-164 (33) [pulling back to OLD pastoral]

132 Return, Alpheus, the dread voice is past [

OLD pastoral lament: nature called, 148 ‘every flower’] 1 10

133 That shrunk thy stream; return Sicilian muse... 4,10

. [153 ‘dally w/ false surmise] 6

155 Ay me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas | wash far away

[death » exile] 1 1,10

164 Look homeward, angel now,... dolphins [Arion]

165-185 (21) [NEW pastoral: hope]

165- Weep no more, woeful shepherds.. L. is not dead 7 5 11

186-193 [Winding down to close

Thus sang the uncouth swain.. touched tender stops of various quills

[keys of poetics] 7 1,10 10,12