On Shakespear
(1630)
What needs my Shakespear for his honour'd Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow'd reliques should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid?
5 Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What need'st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th'shame of slow-endeavouring art,
10 Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalu'd Book,
Those Delphick lines with deep impression took,
Then thou our fancy of it self bereaving,
Dost make us Marble with too much conceaving;
15 And so Sepulcher'd in such pomp dost lie,
That Kings for such a Tomb would wish to die.
"On Shakespear" was Milton's first published poem, appearing anonymously in the second folio of plays by Shakespeare (1632). There it bears the title, "An Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet, W. SHAKESPEARE." but has no attribution. Gordon Campbell reckons that Milton's contribution was solicited for the second folio (1632) commendations because one from his father had appeared in the first folio (1623), and the request represented a significant show of gratitude towards the Milton family. John Milton senior had been a trustee of Blackfriars Theatre, famed as the winter quarters (after 1608) of the King's Men, the company of actors for whom Shakespeare served as chief playwright and also as a performer. The first-folio commendation appears as "To the memorie of M. W.Shakespeare." on leaf A6. In 1632, the younger John Milton was just commencing M.A. and had a small but promising reputation as a versifier if not yet a poet.
Professor Campbell also believes that young John Milton wrote "On Shakespear" convinced that he was imitating an epitaph written by Shakespeare himself. "An Epitaph on Sr Edward Standly. Ingraven on his Toombe in Tong Church" may or may not have been written by Shakespeare, but Campbell has located several contemporary attributions and local people in the Shropshire village of Tong still refer to the epitaph, and its accompanying, "On Sr Thomas Standly," as written by Shakespeare. The tomb on which the epitaphs appear is decorated with obelisks reminiscent of "Star-ypointing" pyramids.
reliques. Shakespeare, of course, was never consecrated a saint by any ecclesiastical authority. "Hallow'd reliques" here is merely a poetic way of referring to the admired poets remains.
Star-ypointing. The earliest state of 1632 has "starre-ypointed," perhaps an attempt to correct Milton's "starre-ypointing" which was restored in the second and third states of 1632 and remains in subsequent editions. The locution is a clumsy attempt at Spenserian archaism. As John Leonard points out, the Middle English "y-" was a prefix of the past, not the present, participle.
son of memory. calling direct attention to the conceit of Shakespeare as a son of Mnemosyne, described as the goddess of memory and the mother of the Muses in Hesiod's Theogony 915.
easie numbers. Metrical periods or rhymed verses.
unvalu'd. Invaluable.
Delphick. Apollo, Greek god of poetry (among other things) had his oracle at Delphi.
make us Marble. The reader is similarly imagined as changed into a marble monument in Il Penseroso, 40-3. This may allude to the myth of Niobe, who was turned to stone for bragging that her children were greater than Latona's children, Apollo and Diana (Apollodorus Library 3.5.6). The mourner for Shakespeare could, like Niobe, become a stone monument to his memory while grieving.