Naturam non pati senium. English translation. Back to Latin text. Open Latin text in new window.

Introduction. Milton titled this collection of Latin and Greek verses, "Sylvarum," or "of the woods," indicating the variety of metrical forms included, even a variety of languages, since two are in Greek. The metrical forms employed here include iambics, hexameters and various kinds of Horatian modes, including alcaic stanzas. Milton arranged the poems in a roughly chronological order according to their dates of composition, probably to emphasize his progress as a poet from his earliest attempts to his more mature poems.

On July 2, 1628, Milton wrote to Alexander Gill, his former tutor and enclosed with his letter a printed copy of a poem he composed for an "Academic Assembly." This was probably Cambridge's commencement exercise held on July 1 that year. Milton wrote: "by chance a certain Fellow of our House, who was going to act as Respondent in the Philosophical Disputation at this Academic Assembly, entrusted to my Puerility the Verses which annual custom requires to be written on the questions, he himself being long past light-minded nonsense of that kind and more intent on serious things" (Complete Prose Works 1.314). This poem, or "De Idea Platonica" may be the verses to which Milton referred in that letter.

The translation follows that of Walter MacKellar with a few changes based on consulting The Columbia Milton and Merritt Y. Hughes.

Oedipus. According to Sophocles's play Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus put out his own eyes after learning he had killed his father, Laius, and married his mother, Jocasta.

Gorgon shield. According to Ovid's Metamorphoses 4.773-803, all who looked on the Gorgon Medusa's snaky locks and fierce eyes were turned to stone. According to Homor's Iliad 5.741, the Gorgon's head appeared on Zeus's aegis, once worn by Athena in battle.

son of Juno. Hephaestus, also known as Vulcan or Mulciber. See Paradise Lost 1.740.

your own son's fate. Phaeton, son of Phoebus, almost destroyed the world when he tried to drive his father's chariot, the sun, across the sky, in an effort to prove he was his father's son. See Ovid's Metamorphoses 1.103-400.

Nereus. The oldest of Ocean's children in Hesiod's Theogony 233.

lofty Haemus. Haemus is the Greek name of a the great Balkan mountains. According to Ovid's Metamorphoses 6.87, Haemus was originally a human being who was changed into a mountain for the crime of aspiring to godhood.

Ceraunian hills. Jove or Zeus, according to Hesiod's Theogony 665-735, used mountains as weapons against the Titans when they tried to overtake Olympus. See Milton's use of such an image in Paradise Lost 6.644-66.

the star. That is Venus as Lucifer, the morning star.

changeful Delia. Diana, goddess of the moon, was born in Delos; hence the epithet, Delia.

Corus. The northwest wind.

Aquilo. The northeast wind.

Geloni. Scythians.

the sea-king. Neptune.

Sicilian Pelorus. Mount Aetna sits on a Sicilain promontory called Pelorus.

trumpeter of Ocean. Triton blows a conch shell.

Aegaeon. According to Hesiod's Theogony 147, Aegaeon was the son of earth and heaven, ahd a hundred arms and was called Briareos by the gods. Milto probably refers also to Ovid's Metamorphoses 2.9-10.

the youth of Cyprus. Adonis was Venus's favorite youth; Hyacinth, Apollo's favorite. See the story of Hyacinth in Ovid's Metamorphoses 10.162-216, and the story of Adonis in 10.503-739.