Sonnet XXIII “Methought I saw my late espoused Saint”: Marriage and God
In discussing Milton’s Sonnet XXIII “Methought I saw my late espoused Saint,” Roy Flannagan states, “This sonnet is perhaps the most intensely personal of all the sonnets. ... The problem for biographers and critics alike is to identify which wife Milton was describing.... Whichever wife the poem addresses, it is a moving and beautiful dream-vision that is poignant and immediate” (Milton 258-259). This Romantic reading, which is apparent in an initial reading of this sonnet, becomes too simple upon a second and third rereading. The a priori issue of the identity of Milton’s wife becomes a non-issue when faced with the evident complexities of the sonnet itself. Milton, the author of Of Reformation and The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, does not write simply, and, unlike Flannagan’s assessment that Sonnet XXIII is merely “a moving and beautiful dream-vision,” Milton does not write this sonnet simply as a widower dreaming of the appearance of his dead wife. As evident in his prose tracts, the actions of man, even in the earthly realm of his relationship with his wife as husband, is intricately a part of his relationship with God as believer. This sonnet speaks about the development of these roles of wife, husband, believer, and God, which ends with a painful but true awareness of the right role of the believer in the world towards God.
Sonnet XXIII is primarily iambic pentameter and follows the rhyme scheme of the Petrarchan sonnet; but its development follows that of the Shakespearean sonnet, in which the details of the poem divides itself into four parts: three four-line parts with the fourth part, the resolution, occurring in the last two lines of the sonnet. The first part of the poem gives a classical understanding of marriage and the of how the divine works in human affairs. The voice (hereafter designated as Milton in this paper) alludes to Alcestis when he sees his deceased wife. The allusion seems innocuous in the poem – a husband is joyful to receive his wife, rescued from Death with divine help. But this allusion becomes problematic when one investigates the actual story of Alcestis. In the story, King Admetus learns that he is about to die but he can live if he can find a willing substitute to die for him. He asks his close friends and his parents, who all refuse. At last, his wife Alcestis volunteers to die in his stead. During the mourning period, Hercules arrives as a guest in the home of Admetus, who does not inform Hercules of the death of his wife. Hercules carouses and, upon learning that Alcestis has died, decides to atone for his ill behavior towards his good host Admetus. Thus, Hercules, “Joves great Son” (line 3), wrestles with Death and returns Alcestis to Admetus (Hamilton 168-170). One can see that Admetus as husband is selfish while Alcestis as wife is all-good and self-sacrificing, making an unequal marriage. Similarly unequal is Hercules’ role in the affairs of Admetus and Alcestis. He rescues Alcestis not out of love for Admetus or Alcestis but out of atonement for his own bad behavior, and one can only wonder if Alcestis wanted to be rescued in such a violent manner. The sonnet emphasizes this violence with the spondee “by force” (line 4), and rhythm stresses Alcestis’ non-choice in her rescuing with the trochaic words “Brought to” and “Rescu’d from”: Alcestis did not come to Admetus on her own will; she was brought to him. In fact, Alcestis seems to have no will of her own, as signified in her appearing “pale and faint” (line 4). Thus, like Alcestis submitting to the arbitrary will of her husband, the believer (Alcestis and Admetus) submits to the arbitrary, rough force of divine will (Hercules) in the first part of the sonnet.
The sonnet moves from this classical relationship of direct, visceral arbitrariness and submission to the impersonal, rigid rules of the relationship of man and wife and of man and God in the Old Testament. After the allusion to Alcestis, Milton alludes to the Old Testament and how the “old Law” (line 6) purifies the child-bearing wife such that she achieves salvation, which Milton trusts that his wife has achieved. Again, this allusion seems innocuous – a husband, seeing his deceased wife pure and “washt from spot of child-bed taint” (line 5) trusts that she is happy in Heaven “without restraint” (line 8). This Old Testament allusion becomes problematic when one investigates the actual Law, as stated in Leviticus, chapter twelve: “When a woman has conceived and gives birth to a boy, she shall be unclean for seven days, with the same uncleanness as at her menstrual period. ...If she gives birth to a girl, for fourteen days she shall be as unclean as at her menstruation, after which she shall spend sixty-six days in becoming purified of her blood”; afterwards, the woman must bring a pigeon or a lamb to the priest as a sin offering to atone herself, and “the priest shall make atonement for her, and thus she will again be clean” (Leviticus 12: 1-8). What is problematic in this allusion to the Law is that the husband is not a part of his wife’s purification. In fact, the wife must separate herself from her husband for a given amount of time and then, even before returning to her husband, go to a priest first in order to atone herself from the consequences of the sin of Eve (Genesis 3:16). The spondee “old Law” (which echoes the spondee “by force” in the first part of the sonnet) emphasizes the force by which the “old Law” divides the relationship between husband and wife with convoluted and impersonal rules, as heard in the convoluted dactylic-trochaic rhythm of “Purification” in the line “Purification in the old Law did save” (line 6). Although Milton asserts his role as the husband with the trochee “Mine as” (line 5) and the spondee “Full sight” (line 8), line six still divides him from his wife with line placement as much as the old Law divides a believer from God with convoluted rules and the prelacy which enforces those rules.
But the spondee “Full sight” not only becomes Milton’s assertion that the husband is important in a marriage but also forms the transition to the third part of the development of the relationship of husband and wife, believer and God, with the role of wife. In this third part, Milton finally sees his wife: “Came vested all in white, pure as her mind” (line 9). This iambic line has one trochee “pure as,” which emphasizes his wife’s purity, signifying that she is from Heaven. In addition to her purity, she “shin’d” (line 11) forth “So clear” (12), a clarity that is powerful as indicated by its spondaic rhythm (unlike the “pale and faint” Alcestis) with “Love, sweetness, goodness” (line 11). The stresses on “Love,” “sweet,” and “good” indicate that the power behind her shining is more powerful than herself. In fact, “Her face was vail’d” (line 10), and “no face with more delight” (line 12) can originate this powerful light. Thus, her shining is a reflective light, and since she has come down from Heaven, she is reflecting the light of God. Milton’s wife, then, becomes a guide to the Love Itself, God Himself, in the same way that Beatrice was Dante’s guide through the Paradiso, reflecting the light of God in herself (Paradiso V.1-12), and leading him to God. In Christian marriage, then, the wife serves as the help-meet of her husband, not only in the mundane, as in raising children, which can separate herself from her husband (as in the old Law), but also as his spiritual guide to God, such that love of her will guide the husband to love of God. In the same way, unlike the husband-worshipping Alcestis, the wife will do her duties for her husband for love of her husband and, more importantly, for the love of God.
Like Dante, however, Milton cannot stay with his beloved because she is dead and he is alive, which Milton realizes with his “O” (line 13). Unlike Dante, Milton does not have a visceral or visual reminder of God’s presence, like the Catholic Church, and the problem arises of the Protestant widower, whose guide to God, his wife, is dead. Milton hints of the resolution of this problem earlier when he called his vision of his wife a “fancied sight” (line 10). It would be easy if a believer can have a visual reminder of God’s presence, but this visual reminder is a fancy. The reality is that the believer does not have a visual reminder of God’s presence in this world, which Milton realizes also with his “O” – the letting go of a wish, the wish that being a believer were not so difficult in the world. Without a visual guide, the onus of faith falls back within the believer himself, to believe in an unseen God. Thus, the line “day brought back my night” (line 14) has two meanings: First, it means that Milton wakes up in the morning, and he is physically blind. Second, it means that Milton realizes that faith in the Light of God is difficult in the blindness of the earthly, error-filled world of man, which Milton still lives in. But being a believer in an unseen God, as difficult as it is, has more meaning to the believer, as seen in the Gospel: “Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed” (John 20:29). The last line “I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back my night” therefore becomes a resolution, in which Milton wakes up to the painful but true awareness of his role as believer, in the world, of God.
Henceforth, the simple reading of Flannagan does not even start to explain the complexities occurring in Sonnet XXIII. Although based on a personal experience, Milton the poet, aware of his role in the world, uses this personal basis to inform the world the true relationships of husband and wife and of man to God, and how both are intricately linked in the difficult journey towards salvation in this world. Milton’s role as poet, like Dante’s, is pedagogic, to inform and educate the world, and thus this paper ends with a quote from the pilgrim Dante, upon seeing the Beatific Vision:
As someone who sees something in his sleep
And after his dream has only an impression
Of what he felt, and can recall nothing else,
So am I, for my vision has almost gone,
And yet into my heart still, drop by drop,
Flows the sweetness which was born of it.
..............................................................
O supreme light who rise far above
Mortal notions, lend my memory
A little of what then appeared to me,
And give my tongue all the power it needs
So that a single spark of your glory
May be transmitted to people in the future; (Paradiso XXXIII.58-73)
As with Dante in The Divine Comedy, Milton will “[transmit] to people in the future,” and one can see in this little sonnet the poet that will write Paradise Lost.
Works Cited
Alighieri, Dante. “Paradiso.” The Divine Comedy. Trans. C. H. Sisson. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1993. 368, 497.
Hamilton, Edith. Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes. New York: New American Library, 1969. 168-170.
Milton, John. “Sonnet XXIII: Methought I saw my late espoused Saint.” The Riverside Milton. Ed. Roy Flannagan. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1998. 259.
The New American Bible. New York: Catholic Book Publishing, 1986.
© October 5, 1999 Rufel F. Ramos