Lycidas

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1638

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

Shepherds and Their Pipes

In pastoral poetry, shepherds symbolize the innocence and simplicity of rural life. They tend to their flock from morning until night. In this idyllic setting, they play their panpipes (also known as flutes). Thus, Lycidas and the swain used to play “rural ditties” (Line 32) that were “Temper’d to th’oaten flute” (Line 33). The nature spirits loved to dance to the tunes, and even the trees enjoyed the shepherds’ “soft lays” (Line 44).

The playing of the pipe is a symbol for writing poetry: “[N]ow my oat proceeds” (Line 88), the swain states later, as he returns to his pastoral theme in song. Pipes are mentioned again by St. Peter, but the “shepherds” he is referring to symbolize the bishops of the church who abuse their offices, so their pipes make an unpleasant sound that offends the ears: “their lean and flashy songs / Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw” (Line 124). (“Scrannel” means harsh or unmelodious.) These shepherds are the opposite of the good shepherds and their joyful ditties.

Seawater and Freshwater

It is not surprising, since Lycidas drowned at sea, that water imagery is a recurring motif. Milton makes a clear distinction between the turbulent, dangerous seas that took Lycidas and the life-promoting freshwater springs that inspire the poet. The seas are the “remorseless deep” (Line 50) that pulled Lycidas beneath the waves. The awesome power of the open waters is evoked in the following lines:

Ay me! Whilst thee the shores and sounding seas

Wash far away, where’er thy bones are hurl’d,

Whether beyond the stormy Hebrides,

Where thou perhaps under the whelming tide

Visit’st the bottom of the monstrous world (Lines 154-58).

In contrast are the freshwater springs and fountains, such as the “sacred wells” (that is, springs) where the sister Muses dwell (Lines 15-16), as well as the “fountain Arethusa” (Line 85), whom the poet addresses when he wants to return to his song. Also in this category are two freshwater rivers: First, “thou honour’d flood / Smooth-sliding Mincius (Lines 85-86), which contrasts with the “perilous flood” (Line 185) of the seas that swept Lycidas away, and second, the river Alpheus, whom the speaker invokes (as he does with Arethusa) when he wants to return to his pastoral theme: “Return Alpheus: the dread voice is past / That shrunk thy streams” (Lines 132-33).

Hair

Hair is a recurring image and motif with various different meanings. The image first appears in Line 69 as “the tangles of Neaera’s hair.” The shepherdess Neaera’s presumably luxurious flowing tresses are presented as a kind of erotic temptation that could, if the poet allowed it, distract him from his true vocation in life. It is no doubt easier, and perhaps more alluring, to play with the hair of a flirtatious shepherdess than to get down to the hard work of creating immortal poetry.

The hair motif recurs with the appearance of St. Peter, who “shook his mitred locks” (Line 112) as he starts to contemplate the vexing issue of corrupt clergymen. The miter is the headdress of a bishop, but St. Peter obviously has a full head of hair under it. The image suggests a contrast with Neaera’s hair, which appeals only to the earthly senses, whereas St. Peter’s miter covers much of his hair and suggests a more profound, spiritual orientation in life.

It is not, though, the final image of hair, which comes in the penultimate stanza. It is introduced by the personification of the sun, which at dusk has a “drooping head” (Line 169), but at dawn rises “And tricks his beams, and with new spangled ore / Flames in the forehead of the morning sky” (Lines 170-71). The radiant beams of the sun are thus presented metaphorically as the hair on top of a human head. Another image of hair follows just two lines later. The risen sun is a metaphor for the resurrected Lycidas, who now is shown washing his hair in a kind of purification ritual: “With nectar pure his oozy locks he laves” (Line 175). This, finally, is hair fit for heaven.